Amid 90-hour workweek, former L&T employee supports SN Subrahmanyan: ‘In perfect sync with what the company requires’

Amid the raging row over the 90-hour workweek debate, a former Larsen & Toubro (L&T) employee has defended the construction company’s chairman SN Subramanian. Subramanian continues to be the favorite child of controversy ever since his remarks about employees working 90-hour weeks for all the wrong reasons went viral.

The former L&T employee, known as Amey Kulkarni, said in a post on X that the chairman’s remarks coincide with what the construction company is asking for. He also narrated his interactions with Subramanian during his long tenure at L&T from 2015 to 2017.

“I have worked with Larsen & Toubro for two years. I also interacted with Mr. SN Subrahmanyan several times in 2015. Working on Saturday was always annoying and stressful for me as well. But his comment on 90 hours work week is exactly in sync with what his company requires,” she said. He said in his post.

He also said that L&T is a hierarchical organization like the army where knowledge, creativity and intelligence may not be as important as work ethics and discipline.

Needless to say, the L&T employee received massive backlash from netizens. Social media users suggested that if L&T already has so much work going on, it needs to hire and train more people.

“If you have a high demand for work, how about hiring more employees? Then delegating shift work. But how can that work if employee costs rise and Supra can’t cover the bottom line, and the stock won’t make it happen?” “If it goes up, he won’t get his meager salary of Rs 50 crore, etc. It’s a way to cheat people,” one user wrote.

Another user stated: “If your boss wants to finish the metro project in 5 years instead of 10, he should hire more people instead of asking already existing employees to work overtime. This will help ease unemployment.”

A third user said: “L&T should hire more people, train them and ensure that all of them work as per the stipulated law. You can’t expect to work 90 hours to complete your projects. Also hiring more increases job opportunities.”

“What’s the logic? If you want people to work at night to complete a project in half the time, you have two teams working at night and two teams working during the day. If you make the same people stretch, it’s not just that.” They cause problems in the project but they will not be able to work efficiently. Maybe this is a fault of L&T’s performance they have a lot of orders but the execution is very poor and often this leads to cost escalation causing more money for the government Thinking about national interest, like corporates “L&T should rethink their approach,” commented another user.

The L&T chief’s remarks drew harsh criticism from the likes of actor Deepika Padukone, Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra, and RBG Enterprises chairman Harsh Goenka. While Padukone described the proposal as “shocking”, Mahindra said it was the quality of work that mattered rather than the number of hours clocked.

On the other hand, Goenka said working long, grueling hours is a “recipe for burnout.”