Work Life Balance

Like most Indian men, I too have a penchant for reading newspapers while sipping my morning coffee. One early morning, as I was flipping thru the pages of a newspaper a peculiar headline which read “THE RIGHT TO DISCONNECT” caught my attention. It was for a bill introduced in Parliament by the honourable MP Shrimati Supriya Sule.

This bill was introduced to establish an Employees’ Welfare Authority to confer the right on every employee to disconnect from work related telephone calls and emails beyond work hours and on holidays and right to refuse to answer calls and emails outside work hours and for all matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.

There are some incidents which leave an indelible impression on our minds; these incidents leave us scratching our heads even though we can’t do much to change them. This bill brought back memory of one such incident which happened some six years ago

I was sitting inside the cabin of our Project head seeking his approval for a file note when one of the Senior Managers barged in abruptly and started speaking in a high pitched tone, barely noticing me. He seemed incensed with something and that reflected on his face. He said with the mixture of irritation and anger in his voice.

“Sir, it’s very difficult to contact Ms. XXX after officer hours. She doesn’t pick up my phone”

Project head gave him a patient hearing and summoned the lady officer. Lady Officer meekly came into the room and when enquired about not picking up the phone after office hours replied in a firm but composed manner.

“I was feeding my two-year-old son at that time and as phone was kept in my bag which was inside the cupboard, I didn’t hear the ring tone. I called sir the very moment I saw his missed call”.

Project head seemed convinced by her explanation and so was I but her boss was surely not convinced and that reflected in her appraisal as well.

As somebody who has worked on field I can vouch for the fact that it is very stressful to answer phone calls and emails after office hours and technology has played havoc with the work life balance. In this age of social media and internet it is impossible to stay away from work even for a second. A phone call not answered or a Whats App message not replied is misconstrued as insubordination. There is this persistent urge to respond to calls and e-mails (termed as ‘telepressure’), constant checking of e-mails throughout the day, and even on weekends and holidays. All this has given rise to stress related disorders, sleep deprivation and has wrecked the personal life of employees. At times it can happen that a person might not be in a position to answer the phone call or reply to that nagging email but that doesn’t make him a lesser mortal.

Employees who sit for long hours in office and reply to all the phone calls and messages are considered to be sincerer and hardworking vis-à-vis those who leave the office on time. This problem is further accentuated if boss has a predilection to write emails after office hours or is a workaholic who wants to spend maximum time in office. In such cases subordinates also have to unwillingly stay back to give their boss the company he covets.

It has also been found in researches that productivity of an employee goes down if they work for more than 50 hours in a week. Even though the jury is still out on whether this bill should be made into a law but promulgation of this bill in itself has brought to limelight the predicament of employees who are losing their sleep over the next phone call or next Whats App message and has also got many employers thinking.

For any organization to grow it is imperative that it’s employees are happy at their work place for a happy employee is a productive employee.

I hope bosses are listening…