L&T Chief SN Subrahmanyan, After His Infamous 90-Hour Workweek Remark, Now Says, 'Indians Are Unwilling To Move For Work'

Larsen & Toubro, one of India's largest conglomerates, and its chief, SN Subrahmanyan, have been in the headlines in the recent past for the company's top executives' remark on work-life balance and his insistence on Indians working for 90 hours in a week.

Not Willing To Move

Now, SN Subrahmanyan has made another remark, which appears to be garnering some attention. While speaking at the CII South Global Linkages summit in Chennai, the head of L&T said “If you tell him (a tech employee) to come to the office and work, he says bye. And that's a different world altogether."

"Therefore, it is a funny world which we are trying to live in and many of us wearing slightly more white hair are trying to understand it. We have to see how to live with this world and have policies which are flexible to understand all this and take it forward.”

He also observed that the pattern of mobilsation and coming accrual of labour has changed.

In which, there is greater agency with the workers, on whether they want to take up a work or a job, and not the other way around, like was the convention in the past.

According to a report from the Times of India, the L&T chief SN Subrahamanyan also added an anecdote, in which he claimed, "When I joined L&T in 1983, my boss said, if you are from Chennai, you go to Delhi and work. Today if I take a guy from Chennai and tell him to go to Delhi and work, he says bye."

Staring at Spouse

SN Subrahmanyan was previously in the limelight for his remarks on work-life balance, which did not advocate for any.

His infamous remarks involved him asking his employees as to what they wish to achieve by 'staring' at their spouses, instead, they should be at work on Sundays.

He also infamously advocated for a 90-hour workweek. These remarks garnered Subrahmanyan a significant amount of social backlash.