She went through an appraisal cycle in a digital marketing agency in March. Despite days of overwork and weekend sacrifices, they gave her an alarmingly unsatisfactory hike. Now, this was anticipated because — as much as it sucks to say this — you don’t expect Indian corporates to pay you well themselves. But her increment percentage was exceedingly low even by the bare minimum standards.

So naturally, disheartened, she approached the HRs and questioned them for it, presenting both qualitative and quantitative differences her work had made. By then, almost everybody at her office was unsatisfied with the hike. Some gulped it while others planned their resignation, and my friend resolved to fight for it.

Their reason for the bad hike was, and I quote, “Well, you should see that we also offer you a great working environment, and that’s not very common for an agency.”

Where daily overtime was a norm that was advocated, one can’t really sing praises for the work environment. But people in her office were generally nice and approachable, at least that’s what she had told me. However, when did people’s basic decency become an excuse to not pay employees fairly? Sadly, this is way too common in corporates, and they always have the most colourful excuses to not pay you fairly.

I will tell you another story without giving a lot of details. I have seen a manager increasing the KRAs of the most hardworking person in their team without increasing the pay. He said, “Your KRAs are increasing because we see scope in you to grow, and this will be a great learning experience too. That’s what matters, right?” No, it’s not the only thing that matters. Money is very important and corporates would be good to not reserve it only for people higher up in the hierarchy. The answer to hard work is NOT more work at the same pay.

You would think these are mere feelings. No, there are numbers to put this into perspective:

“7 out of 10 employees in India believe they are always, often, or sometimes underpaid,” writes The Economic Times citing a report. 

“Nearly 62 percent of Indian employees experience work-related stress and burnout”, as per a joint report by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and digital healthcare platform MediBuddy.

“More than 57 percent of Indian employees feel overworked”, noted Microsoft’s first annual work trend index report in 2021.

Burnout is not an anomaly for Indian employees. We’ve seen, heard, and experienced more than enough stories about working hours actually being daylight and nighttime hours. Getting a work from home is becoming a hassle again. The typical 9 to 5 rarely happens. It’s usually 9 to 5, then 5 to 9 for a week, a month, a year until your professional is blurred with personal, and your life becomes a convoluted mess. Because you don’t have enough time for anything.

There’s a saying you should focus on acquiring skills instead of chasing money at the start of your career. Fair. But then, expecting an ‘unpaid intern’ to put in the same amount of hours and work as people with full-time jobs isn’t fair. Doubling the KRAs of underpaid employees in the name of upskilling isn’t fair. Rewarding hard work with more work isn’t fair. Appraising employees 5% after they’ve devoted 365 days of the year, their leaves, to meet a stupid client’s stupid deadlines isn’t fair. 

Nothing about the corporate system is fair when it’s centered around listening to employee feedback and not doing anything about it. The pretense of empathy can be very suffocating. But that’s what our corporate culture is, isn’t it? Here, you’re expected to suck it up and meet those targets, abstain from those leaves, be available, and, most importantly, be thankful. Why? Well, because you’re learning new skills.