Company has awesome way of getting employees to stop working beyond their shift time

Hunter-gatherers in the Stone Age worked just 3 to 4 hours a day, collecting food and spending the rest of the time in other leisure activities. Roman artisans worked only 6 hours a day, then signed out of their jobs. Work-life balance is something that every worker needs. It is not a luxury, but a necessity. While a large population of employees worldwide grapples with burnout and work stress, an Indian tech company has forged an innovative way to make sure its employees don’t get overworked, reported NBC News.

When the work timings of employees at SoftGrid Computers are over, a message pops up on their computer screens, flashing a “Warning!!!” text. The message reads, “Your shift time is over. The office system will shut down in 10 minutes. PLEASE GO HOME!” These computers are equipped with a notification system that kicks in the moment an employee's shift is over. The positive measure went viral a year ago when a LinkedIn post was shared by Tanvi Khandelwal, a human resources specialist at SoftGrid Computers in Indore, India.

“My employer supports #WorkLifeBalance. They put this special reminder, which locks my desktop after business hours and issues a warning,” Tanvi wrote in the post. The post soon went viral, with more than 400,000 likes and 7,000 comments.

Speaking to NBC News, Tanvi said that “work-life balance” is one of the important keystones in the growth of an organization. While slacking out at work is inappropriate, overworking is equally unfavorable, both for the employee and for the company. When one person on a team regularly works long hours, it can make other people in the team feel they’re expected to do the same. It can lead to the employee feeling burnout in the long run.

Shweta Shukla, a co-founder and the CEO of SoftGrid, said she and her partners took this initiative to prioritize and maintain an overall work-life balance among their 40 employees, who would often stay late to meet client and office demands. “Coming up with this solution was a shared thought process amongst all the partners,” she elaborated. “Since the pandemic, we have all been facing issues with working overtime and missing out on the social parts of our daily lives, like quality time with our families and loved ones.” Shukla added that they chose to use the pop-up because it is “more fun and engaging than an email or memo.”

When the employees first saw this pop-up flashing on their screens, they thought it was some prank, said Tanvi. But once they got to know the whole picture, they started appreciating this idea as it gave them the liberty to have their work boundaries.

The initiative was also praised by many people, who were not part of this firm. Ramana Boyani, a Singaporean employee, said in a LinkedIn post, “I love this idea. Your computer will shut down after your office hours. Getting regular 7 to 8 hours of sleep is a dream for most of us.” Alisha Lobo commented, “A great initiative towards maintaining employee's healthy work-life balance!!!” Knocksense, an Indian content platform called it a “refreshing initiative.”

Tanvi also revealed that many other human resources employees had reached out to her on social media to ask about doing something similar at their companies. With just one simple software, the company is driving a positive shift in the workplace scenario. “I’m a fan,” said speaker and author Mark Crowley about the company on X.