Hyderabad: Even as the pandemic continues to bring about lifestyle changes, the long working hours being put in the work from home environment is making it difficult for employees in the IT industry.
Some techies are putting in an average of 12 hours of work per day while some of them are sweating it out for a few hours during weekends.
Project-based teams often deal with unrealistic deadlines and the limited talent resource at their disposal is over-burdening employees. Close to two years of virtual working has reportedly affected the mental health of those with less than three years of experience in the profession.
“It happens when teams are overburdened with unrealistic timelines. A project that is ideally finished in eight months cannot be delivered in three months unless employees toil for at least 15 hours a day,” explained Pathri Nishank, a senior developer at a city-based firm. Despite bringing in more people on board, such projects have immense pressure on the teams, he added.
As per government norms, the limit for weekly working hours for employees in the IT and IT-enabled services industry is 48 hours. Employees are entitled for overtime wages for the work done beyond the limit.
The Telangana Shops and Establishments Act mandates that no employee is allowed to work “for more than eight hours on any given day and 48 hours in a week.”
The IT and IT-enabled industry, however, is exempted from the ‘eight hours a day’ rule although it still has to follow the weekly limit of 48 hours.
The reality is nowhere close to monitoring, let alone implementation of the norms.
In those instances where employees are asked to work for a few hours during weekends due to deadline compulsions, some entities, it seems, are not compensating for the extra hours that are being put in.
