It's Up To Every Individual To Find Work-Life Balance, Says Mohandas Pai

EY is a very good company. It has a great reputation. It seems that in this case, the manager may have been lackadaisical and may not have behaved in the correct manner. The chairman should have been sensitive. The least the chairman could have done was to say, 'We express deep regret for what has happened. Our company does not accept this kind of behaviour by any manager. We will set up a small group to investigate it [the incident] and make sure to understand what happened. And if there is a problem, we will stamp it out. This is not our culture.'

Instead, he made a very insensitive statement and that further inflamed the public. It’s very important that all enterprises send a strong message from the top that ‘Look, we have to have a good work ethic and a good work culture’. And when people are in pain, you have to show sympathy and empathy.

In my opinion, having seen companies for the past 40 years, there could be toxic managers who are driving the employees very hard and not treating them well. But a CEO doesn’t drive everybody in the organisation. Human resource [HR] managers have to make sure that employees are treated fairly. And there is no exploitation of an employee for getting work done much beyond certain limits.

Managers have to treat people well. They must ensure that if employees are sick, they can take time off…make sure their personal needs are taken care of and make sure they lead by example.

The government should keep away. The law is sufficient as it is. We don’t need more laws. One event does not cast a shadow on everybody. In another unfortunate incident, somebody died by suicide. But no controversy would have happened if the person had left the organisation.

In the service sector, you are not making a product—you are serving people. You have to be on call. You have to respond immediately. If you are a doctor or a lawyer, you cannot complain about long hours. But even then, we have to make sure the work pressure doesn’t become too much. That’s very wrong.

For example, if your flight is late and you don’t get a response from the counter, you will get upset, right? It’s very natural because you expect service, you expect communication. If there’s a failure, you get upset and you lose your temper. These things are normal. We are all humans.

In an audit firm, there’s a lot of pressure during certain critical times of the year. It’s a reality. You have to work long hours. People do it. They learn a lot and work is accomplished. And you cannot quarrel about that. That’s the nature of the beast. The service sector is different from manufacturing. Work is largely individualistic.

Look, the generation gap has always been there. It is nothing new. The question is how you bridge it. You do it by communicating better, spending time with the people who report to you, listening to them and making them feel part of the team.

Every new generation [tells its previous generation], 'You guys don’t know what you’re doing.' It happens every 15 years. But no generation is special. The key is communication. That is because the better the communication, the better the team will be.

In a large organisation, a great majority of people do nine to five. That is perfectly fine because large organisations are process driven and well structured. They work very differently from start-ups. In a large organisation, people rise to their own level of ambition and are happy. It’s not necessary for everyone to be a star. But in a start-up, you cannot do that because there is a shortage of resources.

I am someone who believes in hard work and longer hours when you are younger. If you want to achieve great things in a start-up, you will not achieve it by working nine to five. Then you should work elsewhere.

I believe work is life. Each individual has to decide. It is based on what they want to achieve. It’s up to every individual to find a work-life balance. I’ll give you an example: suppose you are staying far away from the office, and you spend four to five hours a day commuting. There’s another employee who stays very close and spends 15 minutes commuting. Whose problem is it? It’s your problem. In such an instance, you cannot say, 'I will work less as my work-life balance is ruined because of the long commute.'

We had a very good system where if employees were unhappy, they would meet the HR managers, and we solved the problem. I never heard of toxicity in Infosys. Some people worked very hard. Some goofed up. Some put in only 60% of the time they were supposed to. We had to advise them that they have an obligation to the company to work properly. We were very particular about the work done and the time spent because it is a consulting company. When you bill your client on a time and material basis, you have to spend the time for which you billed. That is being honest.

Youngsters have access to a lot of information. In all educational institutions, they have got their seniors who have gone into a career or an organisation earlier. They can get to know from them what it is like. The network exists. I don’t think any special counselling by anyone is required.