RPG Enterprises Chairperson Harsh Goenka has urged India to draw inspiration from Denmark's work culture, which he believes holds valuable lessons for improving employee well-being and productivity. His comments come amid a heated debate over the 90-hour work week in India.
Goenka highlighted that in Denmark, employees are trusted to work independently without micromanagement. They enjoy a minimum of five weeks of vacation annually and six months of parental leave. Flexible working hours allow people to balance their professional and personal lives, while government support cushions job losses.
He noted the absence of rigid hierarchies, which empowers employees, and remarked on the Danish attitude toward work, saying, "Many Danes would work even after winning the lottery." He also praised Danish employers for valuing mental health and work-life balance, with collective well-being prioritised over individual ambition. "Some lessons here for India," he concluded.
L&T Chairperson SN Subrahmanyan recently sparked controversy after he pitched for a 90-hour work week. During a formal interaction with employees, he said, "I regret I am not able to make you work on Sundays. If I can make you work on Sundays, I will be more happy, because I work on Sundays also."
In October 2023, Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy also suggested a 70-hour work week for young professionals, arguing it was necessary if India wanted to compete with economies like China.
However, top industry voices like Anand Mahindra and Naushad Forbes have dismissed the longer work week idea. Forbes suggested the remark should not be taken too seriously, as it was likely made without much thought.
"It's all actually about quality and not quantity. What you want is the full engagement of people's heads. We increasingly work much more with our heads than our hands, and as such it's all about quality," Forbes said in an interview with The Wire. "I'm not only not convinced, I'm pretty sure that if one works 90 hours a week, ideas will probably suffer, quality will probably suffer, and you'll actually end up with less than you would like."
Former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan also did not favour the idea of the longer work week and said that it was very hard to prescribe an appropriate work week. "If you're working on the shop floor in the middle of deafening noise and in unpleasant circumstances, there is a different work week. If you're reading interesting papers and books and you love doing research you can spend all the time you have doing that. It's very hard to prescribe (a fixed work week)," Rajan said while speaking with Barkha Dutt for Mojo.
"It depends on how much you're enthused by the work that you're doing. How much you find the work meaningful in making a change. And I don't think that there's one size for all. I do think everyone finds their balance," Rajan added.