Here’s why Richard Branson’s 3-day work week won’t work in India

In a country where 5-6 day week produces only about 3 days’ work, we will have so many more hours to kill in an 11-hour work day

anju

Anju Yadav | August 4, 2014



So Richard Branson advocates a three-day work week and the second richest man of the world, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, seconds the Brit. But, India, say news reports, is not ready for such a model as per HR experts.

I, Sirs, too, am an Indian who cannot let you impose your sinister designs upon us God’s own men and women who will simply lose their purposes in life if you were to give us four more days in a week.

O worthy westerners, what use do we have of three more days – we are not given to the wasteful ways of the West, wining and dining being way below our cup of tea, and samosas. 

The wives and the husbands will have more of their other halves on their nerves you see, pushing the divorce rate to near British/American averages. And children will be confused between a housewife mother and the househusband father. Besides, we do love money honey, but who wants to spend his/her day with an ATM? 

As mentioned in the PTI report, Joseph Devasia, managing partner of global executive recruitment firm Antal International Network, gives the best reason why a compressed workplace culture is not at all feasible for India. "We in India are poor on productivity and a three-day work week would reduce that further. I believe even now a 5-6 day week produces only as much as three days’ equivalent of work in the western world."

There he nailed it. We won’t like it compressed ’coz we’re so used to the inflated. We like the office so that we stretch our work just to stay a little bit more in our cushy cocoons.

Then there is the pertinent case of office phone, printer, pantry, and above all, the air-conditioner. Even if we were willing to pay, where is the electricity?

Branson might see virtue in the three-day work week model, wherein people work for 11 hours a day for three days, but the extended weekend comprising four days will pose a challenge of another kind. A four-day weekend lends itself to an exciting proposition to go on a holiday (Mr Branson would agree here). But therein lies a quintessentially Indian twist. We invariably add a day ‘this side’ and a day ‘that side’ to a long weekend.

Now, that might not work for Branson or Slim, but we will be obliged to adjust that Eid holiday, and you Sirs dare not interfere in matters religious. 

That is 386 worthy words for you to ponder Messers Branson and Slim, and now let me catch that latest gossip by the watercooler.
 

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