‘Work-life balance is incredibly important…’: Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji stresses importance of work-life balance

Wipro Ltd's Executive Chairman Rishad Premji, at a fireside chat on the first day of the Bengaluru Tech Summit 2024, highlighted the importance of work-life balance and shared his learnings with people, The Economic Times reported on Wednesday, November 20.

Premji focused on his learnings about work-life balance in the early days before COVID-19 and said that it is something that people have to define for themselves as the organizations will never work at it for a person. 

“Work-life balance is incredibly important. I learned this very early on in my early days before COVID-19, which is work life is something that you have to define for yourself; organizations are never going to work at it for you. So you have to define what it means and draw boundaries,” said Rishad Premji at the fireside chat.

This view from the Wipro Chair came days after his rival Infosys’ founder Narayana Murthy reiterated his stance on the 70-hour work-week. Murthy said he does not believe in the concept of work-life balance and also highlighted his disappointment over India’s shift from a six-day to a five-day workweek in 1986.

Shift to Hybrid Model

Multiple IT companies in India have shifted to a hybrid working model after the global COVID-19 pandemic. Companies like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, and Wipro have started calling their employees to return to the office more often than before, although many continue to remain flexible. 

“The one model that IT industry has adopted, and I think the government has been supportive of is a more hybrid model of work. It is a controversial subject. But we, as a company, have said, we won't be able to come three days a week, but we want you to have the flexibility of having two days on your work place. That certainly helps with the workforce,” said Premji, reported the news portal.

Companies publicly talking about the taboo topic of work-life balance and the mental health of employees is good news, especially after the pandemic in 2020.

Premji's Learnings

Rishad Premji, sharing the learnings from his own journey, said that it is okay not to be okay, and that thought has helped him focus on sleeping right, exercising and eating right, as per the news portal.

The ability to unlearn will be important and also the agility and speed with which you can adapt and change is going to be critical, he said highlighting the skills required amid the tectonic shift in technology. 

Premji also called India the tech capital of the world and said that the subtle yet profound change came after COVID-19 when people came to India looking for talent and not just because India is cheap.

“I find more and more as you talk to stakeholders and customers, they are shifting their decision making. They are shifting their action into India. It's not simply a low-cost destination. They will say, walk the corridors of Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai. Don't walk the corridors of New York and London… So really, it's become a lot easier today to be relevant on the global map than it ever was before,” said Premji reported the news portal. 

AI Disruption

On the artificial intelligence front, Premji said that he believes in evolution and that companies' adoption of the technology will be a journey.

“Customers are still very much in experimentation mode. Customers are POC with the technology. Are they moving to scale production? Yet, arguably, no. Are more and more customers moving from piloting to production? The answer is yes,” he said.

He endorsed the need for human intervention in certain tasks in our job, while other things can be better carried out by a machine (AI).