Long Working Hours, On-Call Expectations, and Work Spillover: Evidence from Employees in the BFSI Sector

Abstract

Banking, Financial Services & Insurance is an important sector that contribute significantly to overall growth of the economy. The sector is registering overall growth emerged as the single-largest contributor to the country’s corporate profit-to-GDP ratio in financial year 2025.While it is surging so are the challenges around the dynamic work environment of this sector. Long working hours and on call expectations which are part of ‘Work Spillover’ are two such mainstream challenges faced by employees of this sector, which has become part and parcel of every day’s organizational work culture. Rarely it has been observed that such practices are criticized by the Human Resource department or by the top management of the private sector companies in BFSI Domain. This paper is an attempt to reveal the underlying reasons, key challenges, associated direct, indirect and socio-psychological costs, tangible and intangible benefits arising due to these two practices. An attempt is made to understand the viewpoint of the employees how these practices impacts them and their employer, also is it a sustainable practice for companies in long run. An overall data of 125 working employees in private sector banks and insurance companies is collected from selected Metro cities through a survey and telephonic interviews during January 2025 to May 2025 and data is analysed with help of independent sample t-test.