Meta India’s VP and MD Sandhya Devanathan emphasised that rather than fixating on working 70 hours a week, companies should prioritise measuring the impact of the work accomplished. She also highlighted the need for a system that accommodates both men and women who are responsible for caring for young families. Her comments came a few days after Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy's remarks about a 70-hour workweek generated significant debate and discussion.
Speaking at CNBC-TV18’s India Business Leader Awards (IBLA), Devanathan said, “As a company, we have worked on the policies to provide maternity and paternity leaves, bereavement leaves, in case of a miscarriage to support them. We also believe in hybrid work. At Meta, we measure impact in terms of what we are delivering. So I don’t think it comes back to the number of hours. I am glad that I stuck around when I was a young mother, and my then company had supported me with the right policies. That’s the thing we should be measuring and not think about 70 hours of work.”
She also said that for India to become a $5 trillion economy, participation of women in the work force is equally important and that will come by building the right support systems to enable them.
“I am not saying 70 hours is good or bad, but the system has to work for everyone including people taking care of young families, both men and women and not just looking at it from a work lens,” she added.
This comes at a time when several startup founders and business magnates including Ola’s Bhavish Aggarwal, Cred’s Kunal Shah and JSW’s Sajjan Jindal among others came in support of Murthy’s recent comments. Murthy had said that youngsters need to work 70 hours a week if India wants to compete with economies that have made tremendous progress in the last two to three decades.
Meta’s India opportunity
On the business front, Meta is betting big on the India opportunity, and looking at its business from an ‘India-first’ lens. Currently, the company is expecting to drive the growth of WhatsApp Business starting with monetising the India market, which is a priority geography for the tech giant.
Devanathan believes that platforms like UPI, ONDC, open credit and whole Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) that were built in India will be a game changer for not just the country but globally, because India is exporting that.
Also read: Meta India head Sandhya Devanathan on WhatsApp monetisation strategy, key focus areas, more
“That’s a big wave I am foreseeing in terms of digital governance for India and the role India can play globally,” she said.
She also highlighted the human capital available in India, which is making Meta double down on this opportunity as well.
She said, “We are the second largest developer base and soon going to be the largest in the world. According to a Stanford report released over this week, that talked about India having massive AI talent base and being on the leading edge of making contributions globally. There are reports on 17 percent global AI talent coming from India.”
“As a company we have doubled down on this as well. We are open sourcing Llama 2. This is a pretty big wave we are seeing. India is also one of our largest user markets globally. This wave of innovation and digital transformation is not just in big cities but Tier-2 and 3 cities. I am also excited about the potential that this holds for small businesses across the countries, as they ride digital transformation and get access to 5G connectivity, and how this will change consumption pattern for everyone in the country,” she added.
Devanathan shared that the global teams of Meta are closely monitoring consumer behaviour in India and have dedicated product teams working out of India. In fact, some of Meta’s teams are currently visiting India for two weeks to understand change in customer behaviour.
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