Watch Nidhi Razdan: Debate on toxic work spaces

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00:00The death of a 26-year-old chartered accountant named Anna who worked for Ernst & Young India

00:08has sparked off a huge debate once again about toxic workspaces.

00:13This is a culture where junior employees in particular are told that in order to succeed,

00:18they literally have to be slaves of their seniors, often being told to work well beyond

00:23the call of duty into late nights and weekends with literally no time for themselves and

00:28their families.

00:29Anna's mother detailed exactly this kind of stress in a heartfelt letter to the chairman

00:35of E&Y India explaining why her daughter was stressed and overburdened and ultimately collapsed

00:41and died.

00:42Ever since she had joined the company, she was working weekends, late nights, she was

00:46stressed, she had bouts of anxiety and absolutely no time to even catch her breath.

00:52And this is not the first such case that we've seen.

00:55There was a young banker in the United States who died recently, again collapsing after

01:00working some 100 hours a week.

01:02It led to banks in the US, including JP Morgan, recently announcing a cap on the number of

01:08hours that their junior investment bankers would have to work.

01:12The question though is that should there be some kind of legislation or regulation to

01:18ensure that workspaces, whether public or private sector, actually adhere to fixed hours?

01:24That's what Congress member of parliament in India, Shashi Tharoor is trying to do.

01:29He wants to move a legislation to do exactly that.

01:32We might have to tweak it a bit depending on which industry is working where and working

01:37how.

01:38But this culture of pushing people to work 70, 80, 90, 100 hours a week and holding that

01:46up as some kind of virtue, that has got to stop.

01:50It's time to normalize work-life balance and our mental health and that must take priority

01:56along with work.