Tanvi
Khandelwal, 21, was taken aback recently when a colourful warning flashed
across the screen of her work computer.
"Your shift
time is over. The office system will shut down in 10 mins. PLEASE GO
HOME!" it read.
Ms Khandelwal,
who had joined the company's human resources division just a few days ago, soon
found out that the pop-up message had been installed by her new employers to
get her to log off on time.
I
She is among 40
employees at SoftGrid Computers - an Indian tech start-up based in Indore city
in Madhya Pradesh state - who get a daily notification to log off every day, 10
minutes before their shift ends. At 7pm, their computers automatically shut
down.
Shweta Shukla,
CEO and co-founder of SoftGrid, says that the notification was part of the
company's efforts to help employees enjoy a better work-life balance.
"The
Covid-19 pandemic threw our work days out of balance and we all began working
long hours. I was struggling to make time for my child," she says.
Her partners at
the firm were facing similar challenges.
So they asked a
colleague to create software that would first flash a warning on screen, and
then shut down the computer 10 minutes later.
The software was
installed in all employee systems about six months ago.
"We did it
over a weekend as we wanted it to be a surprise. When the pop-up first flashed
across screens, many employees thought it was a prank, or that someone had
hacked into their computer," Ms Shukla says.
She says she
chose the pop-up route because it was more fun than a "boring memo or
email".
Employees say
that the message is a handy reminder to leave the office and head home.
Ms Khandelwal says
that this is quite different from her experience at former workplaces, where
leaving early was frowned upon and employees were encouraged to work extra
hours.
She posted about
the pop-up initiative on LinkedIn about a week ago, saying that if one was
"working in this type of culture, you do not need any Monday Motivation or
Fun Friday to improve your mood".
The post soon
went viral, with more than 400,000 likes and 7,000 comments.
Many users have
praised the initiative, but some also questioned its practicality.
"This will
create pressure to meet deadlines early," wrote one user. Another said
that the "inflexible working ethos" might force people to work on
weekends. Others asked what would happen if there was work pending and an
employee couldn't simply log off.
"They can
simply restart the system and log in," says Ms Shukla.
She says that
the message isn't binding and is merely meant to remind her teammates that the
workday is over and that they're free to leave.
"Some of
our clients are not happy about this, but we're standing by it," she adds.
By Cherylann Mollan || BBC News
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