Ritu works for an IT firm and is happy that the firm gives her freedom of working hours. She can even work late on Saturday night and come late on Monday, every time her boss gives her a deadline. Also, most meetings happen over a weekend dinner at the office. What is Ritu being subjected to?

'flexi-time' but in reality expansion of working hours by the management

The correct answer is Option (2) → 'flexi-time' but in reality expansion of working hours by the management

While Ritu’s company appears to offer flexi-time, the arrangement actually extends her total working hours instead of providing genuine flexibility. By scheduling meetings during weekends and encouraging work late into the night, the management is effectively blurring the line between professional and personal time. This is a common issue in some sectors, especially IT, where “flexibility” can sometimes mask an expectation for employees to be available almost all the time.

"‘Time Slavery’ in the IT Sector: An average work day has 10–12 hours and it is not uncommon for employees to stay overnight in the office (known as a ‘night out’), when faced with a project deadline. Long working hours are central to the industry’s ‘work culture’. In part, this is due to the time difference between India and the client site, such that conference calls tend to take place in the evening when the working day in the U.S. begins. Another reason is that overwork is built into the structure of outsourced projects: project costs and timelines are usually underestimated in terms of mandays, and because mandays are based on an eight-hour day, engineers have to put in extra hours and days in order to meet the deadlines. Extended working hours are legitimised by the common management practice of ‘flexi-time’, which in theory gives an employee freedom to choose his or her working hours (within limits) but, which in practice, means that they have to work as long as necessary to finish the task at hand. But even when there is no real work pressure, they tend to stay late in office either due to peer pressure or because they want to show the boss that they are working hard. "