Workers/ Employees: India
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Contents[hide] |
Burnout
2019: Indian workers 3rd most prone to burnout
From: October 14, 2020: The Times of India
See graphic:
Increase in workday span across countries, 2019
Holidays (vacations)
A holiday-deprived work force
The Times of India, Nov 22 2015
Sharon fernandes
India 4th most holiday-starved nation
Fuelled by competitive job environment, Indians addicted to work: Survey
If you feel overworked and under-vacationed, half the country is one over with you on this. In a global study by an online travel agency India is ranked the 4th most vacation-starved country with 65% of those polled complaining of not enough R&R. Only the UAE (76%), Malaysia (73%) and Singapore (71%) have it worse. “The feeling of being deprived of a holiday comes from 68% Indians having to cancel or postpone their vacation due to work commitments,“ says Manmeet Ahluwalia, India marketing head of Expedia, the company that ran the survey . “The interesting fact is that while their bosses are more inclined to let them a holiday (70% up from 64% last year), they take fewer days off than their as signed quota (in both 2015 and 2014, vacation time was an average of 16 days). It turns out Indians are addicted to their work. This could be due to competitive work environment ,“ reasons Ahluwalia.
The survey was conducted among 9,273 employed adults aged 18 years and older in 26 countries across North America, Europe, South America and Asia Pacific. The survey found 11% `strongly agreeing' they couldn't utilise their entire annual holiday quota because they were busy at work.Indians scored the highest on this metric, with 23%.
Guilt associated with shirking work also plays a huge role in Indians taking shorter vacations. “We found 10% Indians saying they feel too guilty to take a vacation, or if they do, it's shorter than their allotted days. Furthermore, at 68% India is 20 points higher than the global average on vacations cancelled or postponed due to work,“ Janet Halliday, senior vice president, Northstar, a global integrated strategic insights consulting firm that conducted the survey says.
Missing out on key work opportunities is another deciding factor. “18% Indians worry important work decisions will be made without them if they vacation. Only 13% of those polled in Malaysia and Brazil and 12% in Hong Kong had such worries,“ says Ahluwalia.
Other factors eating into vacation time is the desire to bankcarry over days to the next year. The Swedes at 41% have the highest tendency to bank their holidays, followed by Indians at 32%. Often leave is utilised in recuperating from illnesses. Instead of a massage bed, 10% Indians admitted to having spent their entire holiday allowance on a sickbed. The lure of a longer vacation however is definitely strong among working Indians, as the survey also found that 54% Indians would still prefer more vacation days over a pay rise, the highest globally.
Productivity
Vis-à-vis other countries
i) Average time to complete a task;
ii) Percentage of tasks finished in a week; and
iii) Percentage of tasks completed
From: May 10, 2018: The Times of India
See graphic :
The Productivity of workers in India, China and other countries, presumably as in 2018-
i) Average time to complete a task;
ii) Percentage of tasks finished in a week; and
iii) Percentage of tasks completed
Working hours
India and the world: 2019
Surojit Gupta, January 8, 2023: The Times of India
From: Surojit Gupta, January 8, 2023: The Times of India
New Delhi : Average hours of work per week was the highest in Asia and the Pacific in 2019, particularly in South and East Asia, while it was the shortest in North America and Europe and Central Asia, particularly in northern, southern and western Europe, according to the latest report of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
Among developing nations, India, China and Brazil have much longer working hours, with Brazil showing a downward trend which began in 1970s, as per the report titled ‘Working Time and Work Life Balance Around theWorld’.
Globally, the sectors that had the longest weekly work hours in 2019 were wholesale and retail trade (49. 1 hours), transport and communications (48. 2 hours) and manufacturing (47. 6 hours). Those with shortest weekly hours ofwork were agriculture (37. 9 hours), education (39. 3 hours) and health services (39. 8 hours), though it seems likely that extreme demands on health services sector arising from Covid pandemic would have substantially increased average hours of work in that sector, as per the report. The occupational group with longest average hours of work was plant and machine operators and assemblers, who worked 48. 2 hours per week on an average, followed by service and sales workers at 47. 0 hours per week. In contrast, both professionals and workers in elementary occupations, including skilled agricultural workers, worked an average of 40. 2 hours per week. The report said reduced working hours and more flexible working time arrangements, like those used during Covidcrisis, can benefit economies, enterprises and workers, and lay theground for a better and more healthy work-life balance.
Work Life Balance
The ILO study based on data collected from 160 countries —it’s the first one conducted by the Organisation that focuses on work-life balance —found that a substantial portion of global workforce are working either long or short hours when compared to a standard eight-hour day/40 hour working week. More than one-third of all workers was regularly putting in over48 hours per week, while a fifth of the global workforce was working short (part-time) hours of less than 35 per week. Informal economy workers were more likely to have long or short hours, said the report. The report looked at two main aspects of working time: working hours and working time arrangements, and the effects of both on business performance and workers’ worklife balance. It includes a range of new statistics covering hours of work, both before and during Covid crisis.
The study also looked at the crisis response measures governments and businesses used during pandemic to help keep organisations functioning and workers employed. It found that increased proportion of workers on reduced hours helped to prevent job losses.
Long-term changes are also highlighted. “The large-scale implementation of telework nearly everywhere in the world that it was feasible to do so, changed. . . the nature of employment, most likely for foreseeable future,” as per report.
The Covid crisis measuresalso yielded powerful new evidence that giving workers more flexibility in how, where and when they work can be positive both for them and for business, for example by improving productivity. Conversely, restricting flexibility brings substantial costs, including increased staff turnover, as per the report.
“There is a substantial amount of evidence that work–life balance policies provide significant benefits to enterprises, supporting the argument that such policies are a ‘win-win’ for both employers and employees,” it says.
“The so-called ‘Great Resignation’ phenomenon has placed work-life balance at the forefront of social and labour market issues in post-pandemic world,” said Jon Messenger, lead author of the report. “This reportshows if we apply some of the lessons of Covid crisis and look carefully at the way working hours are structured, and their overall length, we can create a win-win, improving both business performance and work-life balance,” he said.
India vis-à-vis the world: 2017
From: January 13, 2025: The Times of India
See graphic:
Working hours for employees in India vis-à-vis the world: 2017
See also
Employment, unemployment: India
Transport sector: India for how Indians Commute to work
Workers/ Employees: India
