Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
A Gen Z job candidate’s unusual request for a 30-minute afternoon nap during work hours left a Noida-based founder questioning whether workplaces should measure productivity by time spent at a desk or by actual results.
Nitin Verma, Founder and CEO of Insta Astro, shared the interaction on LinkedIn, where he recalled a Gen Z candidate telling him during an interview, “Sir, I’ll need a 30-minute nap every afternoon. It boosts my productivity.”
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What initially sounded like an unusual workplace demand eventually made Verma reconsider his own assumptions about how employees work best.
Verma wrote that the candidate did not make the request nervously or as a joke. Instead, he put it forward with the same confidence one might use while discussing salary or other job expectations. He said his immediate reaction was that, in his generation, asking for a nap during an interview would likely have ended the conversation.
However, rather than dismissing the candidate, he told the candidate that he did not particularly care when he chose to take a nap as long as his work was completed and expectations were met. If the candidate delivered, Verma said he would not be concerned about counting his hours. But if the work suffered, a nap would not compensate for it.
That approach ultimately led Verma to see the request differently. Rather than viewing the candidate’s confidence as entitlement, he saw it as an indication that the applicant was comfortable explaining how he believed he worked most effectively.
The founder said he respected the honesty because most candidates attempted to present themselves in a way they believed employers wanted to hear during interviews. This candidate, by contrast, had openly stated what he needed to perform at his best.
The interaction also prompted Verma to reflect on the broader shift in workplace expectations among younger employees.
He argued that traditional workplaces had often equated productivity with the number of hours an employee spent sitting at a desk. Increasingly, however, younger professionals appeared to be placing greater emphasis on output, flexibility and the ability to work according to their individual rhythms.
Verma clarified that he did not believe every demand made by Gen Z employees was necessarily reasonable. But in this particular case, he felt the candidate had made a request that was worth considering rather than immediately rejecting.
Verma said the nap itself was not what convinced him to hire the candidate. Instead, it was the confidence to ask for what he believed would help his productivity, combined with the expectation that he would ultimately have to deliver results.
Take a look at the post here:
The post drew discussion from LinkedIn users, with several people agreeing that workplace performance should be judged by outcomes rather than simply by the number of hours spent at a desk.
One user argued that deliverables had increasingly been converted into hours when the focus should instead remain on whether employees completed their work and met their KPIs.
Another said Gen Z professionals often valued openness and transparency, arguing that allowing candidates to speak honestly about their working styles could help organisations make better hiring decisions.
A third user suggested that the larger productivity debate was not really about when employees worked, but whether workplaces had been designed to value results over appearances.
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
