Picture this: Your laptop screen glows at 9 PM. You’ve been staring at it for 12 hours straight. The inbox is screaming, meetings are stacking up, and your phone buzzes with messages even after you’ve finally closed the lid. This isn’t just happening to a few people in corporate India anymore. It’s the new normal.

This is what the 9-9-6 work culture feels like: grinding nonstop from nine AM to nine PM, six days a week. Corporate leaders like Infosys founder Narayana Murthy and Fintech startup Rupifi’s CEO Anubhav Jain are pushing hard for this model as India’s path to economic growth. But here’s the real question: Is this really how we’ll build a thriving future, or is it just another trap that leaves us exhausted, stressed, and stuck?

It’s worth asking: when leaders advocate 70-hour weeks, who absorbs the risk? For founders and executives, long hours are a strategic decision. For employees, they are often a performance mandate tied to bonuses, appraisals, and job security. The cost structure isn’t evenly distributed. 

Why Leaders Push the 9-9-6 Work Culture: The Myth of Hard Work

Infosys’ Murthy bluntly warned millions of working-age Indians in a recent interview: India needs to work harder if it wants to compete with China. Rupifi’s Anubhav Jain echoed this sentiment, insisting that the 9-9-6 model helped China progress. At first glance, this makes sense. After all, China’s economy is nearly six times larger than India’s (per Murthy), and leaders see extended hours as the shortcut to catching up. “Get a life and then worry about work-life balance,” Murthy has said. Jain added to this discussion: “We need to set the tone for working harder.”

But here’s where things get tricky. While big tech companies like Infosys and TCS have quietly adopted this model, the human cost is real. And it’s hitting young professionals the hardest. Because it’s easy to romanticize 70-hour weeks when you’re not the one whose appraisal depends on replying at 9:30 PM. 

The Hidden Price Tag: Burnout That’s More Than Just Tired

In the age of constant layoffs, working late is becoming a key to avoiding poor appraisals and is not just about being good at your job anymore. Consider a composite example: a 24-year-old software engineer in Bangalore whose performance bonus now depends on after-hours responsiveness. She used to finish work by 6 PM. But now? Her bonus depends on crushing targets that require 12+ hours a day.

This always-on mode is exacting a heavy toll on today’s working professionals. When you work 72-hour weeks without adequate rest, your brain starts to shut down. Research by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) shows that working 55+ hours per week is associated with higher burnout, lower job satisfaction, and even chronic health risks like stroke, heart disease, and sleep disruption.

The Lack of Foresight: Mimicking the Worst of Late-Stage Capitalism

India’s business leaders are keen to emulate the hotbed of innovation and startups, Silicon Valley, also known for its grueling work culture. The Valley’s new-age executives, such as Elon Musk and Eric Schmidt, equate overwork with dedication. This messaging resonates with India’s corporate leaders and startup founders, eager to extract more work from their employees.

However, most Indian companies fundamentally differ from their Silicon Valley counterparts. Their operating model is largely service-oriented rather than research-intensive. To put it simply, their incentives are different. Yet they pull the 9-9-6 card on employees in the name of India’s growth and progress.

Notice the pattern. When productivity slows or growth targets feel ambitious, the first lever pulled is time—not systems, not process redesign, not managerial clarity. Hours are extended because they’re the easiest variable to control. Such expectations of extended work hours are rarely written into policy. But they quietly exert pressure on employees to conform, even at the cost of their mental and physical health.

Why is This Happening Now?

Let’s cut through the noise. The 9-9-6 model isn’t new to China. In fact, it was their secret sauce for tech hubs like Shenzhen. But when China banned it in 2021, it sparked a huge debate: Was this really the engine of growth or just unsustainable pressure? 

In India, things are different. While our average workweek (45.7 hours) is still shorter than China’s (48.9 hours), leaders like Murthy and Jain are quietly pushing for longer hours. The rising demand for more work hours in India can be essentially boiled down to three factors:

1. The Pressure to Compete: India’s economic gap with China feels insurmountable to some business leaders who want results fast. The assumption seems simple: if 45 hours don’t close the gap with China, perhaps 70 will. It’s a tempting equation: time multiplied by ambition equals growth. The math, however, rarely works that cleanly. 
2. Productivity Myths: In the tech sector, which is arguably one of India’s biggest employers, speed often seems more important than sustainability. More hours mean more output, they say, even if the data shows otherwise. Many tech honchos preach about following a 90 hour workweek, which actually includes time spent attending conferences and appearing on podcasts. They don’t really do intense work for the entire 90 hours.
3. Offsetting Margin Compression: In recent years, Indian IT services companies have been facing shrinking profit margins due to AI-powered automation, pricing pressure from clients, and increasing competition. Instead of investing in expensive technology upgrades or innovation, it’s cheaper to extract more hours from their existing employees. And with high unemployment and underemployment among India’s massive pool of educated job seekers, companies have unlimited bargaining power.

Balance as the Key to Sustainable Growth

Can you imagine a workplace where you finish your work by 5 PM every day to have a cozy dinner with your family at home? Would you show up for work regularly if your boss asks you how you’re doing, not just how much you’ve done? How about a place where your success is measured in terms of human potential, not just your daily output?

All these benefits aren’t a part of some utopian fantasy. It’s already happening at organizations that prioritize people over pressure. Companies like Myntra and Adobe India offer flexible hours, generous paid time off (PTO), and real conversations about mental health—not just another policy box to tick.

And it’s not that these companies are less ambitious. They’re smarter. Their work policies align with broader industry trends showcasing the link between improved employee experience and higher retention and engagement. Happier employees also drive better results, such as a 30% drop in absenteeism and a 25% increase in creative problem-solving.

The Future of Work: Redefining Success Without a 9-9-6 Work Culture

The good news? Change is starting. The Indian state of Kerala recently introduced the Right to Disconnect Bill, giving workers the legal right to refuse work-related communication after their designated hours. While nationwide legislation isn’t yet in place, more companies are starting to prioritize well-being over burnout.

But the real shift begins when India’s working professionals refuse to trade their health for a paycheck. To mitigate the impact of saying no to exploitative practices like 9-9-6, you should make these strategic adjustments:

• Build visible output systems such as weekly summary mails and documented progress dashboards to showcase your productivity
• Develop skills or niche expertise that increase your mobility across projects and organizations
• Quietly create exit optionality in case your employer’s expectations become too unrealistic

More working professionals should realize that long hours are neither a career imperative nor a competitive moat. If longer hours alone built competitive advantage, India’s endurance-driven IT sector would be dominating global innovation metrics. Stamina is not strategy.

Conclusion: Your Well-Being is Your Superpower

India is at a crossroads. Will we chase the 9-9-6 grind like a race to an impossible finish line? Or will we find a middle ground where ambition and well-being coexist? The answer lies in redefining what success looks like. Professional growth shouldn’t come at the cost of health, happiness, and sanity.

Your well-being shouldn’t be optional. It’s the foundation for everything else. As for helping India’s economy compete with China? Remember: Ambition without recovery isn’t discipline—it’s depletion. And depleted talent doesn’t build enduring economies.

So next time your work phone buzzes with yet another urgent Slack or Teams notification at 9:30 PM, ask yourself: Is this how I want to build my future? If not, it’s okay to say no. The best growth happens when we’re ready to thrive, not just survive.

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