The head of a tech company says: He worked 70 hours a week for 40 years and thinks that makes sense. But not many people share this opinion. In many countries there is even consideration of reducing working hours.
In many countries, including Germany, there is debate about whether a 5-day week with 40 working hours is still appropriate. In some cases it has already happened that employees have secretly introduced a 4-day week.
But currently 5 days with 40 hours are still the rule in Germany. Now the boss of an IT company has come forward and says: He has worked much harder for decades and would like more working hours to be better.
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40 years 70 hours a week and sometimes even 90 hours
Who is speaking? Narayana Murthy is the boss and founder of the Indian IT company InfoSys. This offers digital services and consulting services worldwide and is also listed on the stock exchange. Murthy himself is married and has two children. He is also referred to as the “Father of the Indian IT sector” by some.
The founder explained that his ideal was not a shortened 35-hour week, but a 70-hour week. Because that’s how he worked himself for years. By the way, another boss has almost the same opinion, because the boss demands that his employees work an 80-hour week.
These are his arguments: Murthy defends his idea by claiming that for years he sat in the office “from 6:20 in the morning to 8:30 at night, six days a week.” He claims that “every nation that has achieved prosperity has done so through hard work,” and reveals that his parents taught him that “the only way to end poverty is to do it very, very much to work hard.” This is what he says in a conversation (via jeuxvideo.com):
I was in the office at 6:20 a.m. and left at 8:30 p.m., working six days a week. I know that all nations that have achieved prosperity did so through hard work.”
My parents taught me early in life that the only way we can hope to escape poverty is to work very, very hard—assuming, of course, that we get the most productivity out of every hour we work. During my 40+ year working life, I have worked 70 hours a week.
He goes on to say that he worked “70 hours a week” for “more than 40 years” of his working life, and for years it was even “90 hours a week.” That cannot be compared with today’s working hours.
The boss of another company did not want to extend working hours, but rather shorten them significantly: He wanted to introduce a four-day week for his employees. So he wanted to find out where his employees spend their time so he could optimize it. But an employee who didn’t just work for one company was exposed: A company wants to introduce the 4-day week – an employee who was working two jobs the whole time was exposed