Amid the raging row over the 90-hour work week debate, a former Larsen & Toubro (L&T) employee has come to the defense of the construction firm’s chairman SN Subrahmanyan. Subrahmanyan continues to be controversy’s favourite child ever since his remarks about employees working for 90 hours in a week went viral for all the wrong reasons. Â
The ex-L&T employee, identified as Amey Kulkarni, said in a post on X that the chairman’s remarks are in sync with what the construction firm requires. He also recounted his interactions with Subrahmanyan during his long stint at L&T from 2015 to 2017.Â
“I have worked with Larsen & Toubro for two years. Have also interacted with Mr SN Subrahmanyan few times then in 2015. Working Saturday was always irritating and taxing for me as well. But his 90-hour work week comment is in exact sync with what his company requires,” he said in his post.Â
He also said that L&T is a hierarchical organisation like the army where knowledge, creativity and brilliance may not be of as much importance as work ethic and discipline.
Needless to say, the L&T employee received immense backlash from netizens. Social media users suggested that if L&T indeed had that much work going on, then, they need to hire and train more people.Â
“If you have so much demand for work, how about hire more employees? Then delegate the work in shifts. But how would that work if the employee costs rise and Mr Subra wouldn’t be able to pad the bottom line, shares wouldn’t rise, he won’t get his meagre salary of 50 crore, etc. Way to fool people lol (sic),” a user wrote.Â
“If your boss wants to finish the metro project in 5 years instead of 10, he should hire more people instead of asking employees who are already there to work extra hours. It will help to ease unemployment,” another user mentioned.Â
“L&T has to hire more people, train them and ensure that all of them work on the prescribed law given. You cannot expect to work 90 hours to complete your projects. Hiring more also increases employment,” a third user said.Â
“What kind of rationale is that? If you want people to work in night to complete the project in half time, you hire two teams which work in night and other work in the day. If you make same people stretch, it will not only cause problems in the project but they won’t be able to work efficiently. Perhaps, this is wrong with the functioning of L&T. They have lots of orders but execution is abysmal. Often it leads to cost escalation which causes government more money. I think in national interest, corporates like L&T should rethink their approach,” yet another user commented.Â
L&T chairman’s remarks drew stinging criticism from the likes of actor Deepika Padukone, Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra, and RPG Enterprises boss Harsh Goenka. While Padukone called the suggestion “shocking”, Mahindra said that it is the quality of work that is important instead of the number of hours clocked in.Â
Goenka, on the other hand, said that working for such long and taxing hours is a “recipe for burnout.”Â