Wipro chairman Rishad Premji explains why work-life balance is important

Wipro’s executive chairman Rishad Premji said work-life balance is “incredibly important” and that he believes the hybrid work model helps workforce, The Economic Times reported.

“I learned this very early on in my early days before Covid, which is work life is something that you have to define for yourself, organizations are never going to work at it for you.” the ET report quoted Rishad Premji as saying in a fireside chat on the first day of the Bengaluru Tech Summit 2024. “So you have to define what it means and draw boundaries.”

Rishad Premji’s statement comes at a time when Narayana Murthy, the founder of Infosys, promoted and reiterated his belief in the 70-hour work-week, stating he doesn’t believe in the concept of ‘work-life balance’.

Narayana even expressed disappointment over India shifting from a six-day workweek to a five-day workweek in 1986.

Rishad Premji meanwhile, elaborated that the concept of work-life in itself has changed dramatically as earlier it would have meant the time one came and left the office, but today, it may even be not to take away the “Instagram access at work.”

“The concept of what it means is simply not ours, it is also the freedom of what I can do with my time while at work, but not working,” the report quoted Premji as saying.

This also comes at a time when several IT companies including Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Wipro started calling their employees to return to office after the pandemic. Premji also talked about how Wipro offers its employees the flexibility of being able to come to office two days a week.

He also claimed Wipro trains its managers to be sensitive to people, to look for signs and have conversations openly regarding work-life balance.