The CEO of a software company admitted that he tries to be as transparent as possible with potential new hires, especially when it comes to the kind of environment that they are expected to be a part of.Â
In a post to X, which was then shared on other social media platforms, including Reddit, Daksh Gupta claimed that he has no problem with his employees not having a life outside of the office and that it’s required for them to spend most of their days behind their desks.
The company founder seemed to take pride in overworking his employees.
“Recently, I started telling candidates right in the first interview that Greptile offers no work-life balance,” Gupta began.Â
He explained that he wants any job seekers interviewing for a position in his company to understand their expectations, which included starting their workday at 9 a.m., and not being able to clock out until close to midnight.
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Not only were employees required to work excruciatingly long days during the week, but the weekends were no better.
Gupta admitted that employees were also expected to show up at the office on Saturday and sometimes even on Sundays.Â
He described the work environment as being “high stress” and that there was zero tolerance for slackers or people who wanted to turn in and complete “poor work.”
“It felt wrong to do this at first but I’m convinced now that transparency is good, and I’d much rather people know this from the get-go rather than find out on their first day,” he reasoned. “Curious if other people do this and if there’s some obvious pitfall I’m missing.”
Creating a toxic work environment without time to enjoy life will inevitably backfire in high turnover and low productivity.
Well, one pitfall that Gupta didn’t seem to be taking into consideration was the ethicality of his demands. Without offering employees any reprieve or incentive for working around the clock, Gupta is setting his team up for inevitable burnout, a revolving door of employees, and eventually, a decrease in productivity.
Having no work-life balance for employees is not something that should be required and praised in a workplace. Just because he’s being transparent about it doesn’t make it any less egregious, and frankly, the only good thing about telling people up front that this is the environment allows them time to actively remove themselves from the interview process and seek employment somewhere else.
There’s nothing attractive or alluring to job seekers when they hear that not only is there a lack of work-life balance, but they’ll be expected to work themselves to the bone for absolutely nothing in return. Many CEOs and business execs fail to realize that just because they’re paying people to exhaust themselves for a company doesn’t equal positive outcomes.
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The main reason workers quit is that they aren’t given a satisfactory work-life balance.
According to the results of a FlexJobs survey, forty-two percent of respondents said they were actively thinking about quitting their jobs; another 20% said they had recently quit.Â
After poor work-life balance, workers most commonly said they were driven to job hunt by low or unfair pay, a toxic culture, and a feeling that they were disrespected or undervalued.
Work-life balance is often ranked pretty high on worker’s wishlists, and the feeling of being disrespected and/or undervalued goes hand-in-hand with not being encouraged to have a life outside of the office.Â
It shouldn’t just be millennials and Gen Zers who are demanding employers start caring about the well-being of their employees.
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“Many times, people think balance is a 50/50 split, but that is not always the case. For each person, the balance may look different and will shift during different seasons of their life. The important part of having balance is that the person does not feel that one area of life is draining and depleting the other,” Abbey Sangmeister, MS.Ed, LPC, ACS, told Verywell Mind.Â
“With a good work-life balance, a person is less likely to be rigid with their schedule,” she continued. “Instead, they are able to be flexible and can adapt to include demands that may come up professionally or personally without disrupting the feeling of balance.”
By bluntly telling employees they won’t have any work-life balance at a company, the pool of potential employees might get pretty slim.Â
Workers are demanding more from their employers, and rightfully so. CEOs and executives should be embarrassed to take advantage of employees who have no choice other than to damage their health and well-being in the name of keeping their jobs.
Nia Tipton is a Chicago-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.
