TCS Managing Director and CEO K Krithivasan addressed the ongoing discussion regarding work-life balance, sparked by recent comments from industry leaders such as L&T Chairman SN Subrahmanyan, who suggested employees should work 90 hours a week, following a previous statement by Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy advocating for 70-hour workweeks.
Krithivasan, however, emphasised that the number of hours worked is less significant than finding one’s balance.
“There are weeks I work 60 hours, there are weeks that I work only 40 hours. I think over a period of time you find your own balance and you become happy,” he said speaking with a news channel.
Youth and work ethics: Krithivasan’s perspective
When asked about the younger generation’s preference for work-life balance over long hours, Krithivasan refrained from commenting negatively on the youth workforce, the news report said. “They (youth) put in their best effort,” he was quoted as saying.
“We have to see the spirit of what they said. We’re just getting into meme war and meme-fest. That’s not doing justice to the veterans and what they have achieved over the years.”
Addressing Sunday work comments
Responding to Subrahmanyan’s suggestion that employees should also work on Sundays, Krithivasan urged against taking the remarks out of context. “Don’t take whatever he said out of context. Because I was not there, you were not there when he said that. Taking something out of context is unfair to them,” Krithivasan was quoted as saying in the report.
“There are times we worked on Sundays when something is going live on a Monday. But there are times when you don’t work on Thursday, Friday, Saturday also because there is not much of work or you work the previous week,” Krithivasan was reported as saying.
The changing narrative of work-life balance
Krithivasan emphasised that work-life balance is about what works best for the individual. “As I said, work-life balance is something that you find most comfortable to you and sometimes what the situation demands,” he said. He stressed that working on Sundays will not become a routine expectation. “Nobody’s going to be asked to work for Sundays for years together. We are blowing these things out of proportion,” he reportedly stated.
TCS’s approach to H-1B Visa concerns
Krithivasan also addressed concerns related to the future of the H-1B visa program following the arrival of Donald Trump, whose presidency sparked debates about visa restrictions. Krithivasan reassured that TCS’s operations would not be significantly impacted by potential cuts to H-1B visa allocations.
“”We have roughly about 40,000 associates working in North America. Out of that, more than 50% are locals and we, on a given year, take around approximately 3,000 visas. People go from here. So our dependence on H1B is quite limited. If the number of visas issued decreases even further, we’ll be able to manage. We have a very strong local pipeline. We can take people from there. We have a good training program,” he noted.
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