Working long hours, blending work and life: Indian-American CEO’s message to his employees

After Infosys founder Narayan Murthy’s advice for working 70 hours a week stirred a debate, Indian origin American CEO of Wayfair, Niraj Shah, has reportedly asked his employees to "blend work with life" as he asked for longer work hours. 

Billionaire Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah in a message to the employees of Wayfair said, “Working long hours, being responsive, blending work and life, is not anything to shy away from. There is not a lot of history of laziness being rewarded with success.” 

“Winning requires hard work,” Niraj Shah asserted through his message note, reported CNN. “Together we can win much faster than we are winning now if we all row in this direction together. Let’s be aggressive, pragmatic, frugal, agile, customer-oriented, and smart," Shah added. 

Earlier, Narayan Murthy had suggested that India’s youth must contribute 70 hours to work in a week. Murthy’s message was to the youth of the country, asking them to contribute to India's growth story. Murthy had asserted that longer work hours is a necessity to boost productivity if India wishes to compete with fastest growing countries like Japan and China. He pointed out that India’s productivity was among the lowest in the world. 

The ones rallying behind Murthy were Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal, Twitter CEO Elon Musk. Elon Musk said that nobody changed the world by working 40 hours a week.  Well, there were critics too. Critics saw the message from the prism of exploitation. Reason given that Indians are the most overworked and underpaid employees in the world.