Moonlighting has become a raging issue in the IT sector as many top voices in the industry stand divided on the matter. The moonlighting concept allows workers of a company to take up alternative jobs apart from their primary job to earn some extra money. CP Gurnani, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Tech Mahindra, while speaking at the Business Today’s event India @ 100 Economy Summit on Friday, said that he might make moonlighting a policy in his company if he is given a chance, but the workers should be open about it.
“If you go by my word if someone is meeting the efficiency and productivity norms, and he wants to make some extra money as long as he is not committing fraud, he is not doing something against the values and ethics of his company, I have no problem. I would like to make it a policy. So, if you want to do it, cheers to that, but be open about it.”
It is to be noted that Wipro CEO Rishad Premji had recently voiced his displeasure on the concept of moonlighting. TCS COO N Ganapathy Subramaniam has also spoken about moonlighting.
“Moonlighting is an ethical issue, we need to inculcate the ethics and (the idea of) being right and if we do something like this for short-term gains, in the long-term we will lose out,” Subramaniam told Business Today.
Going by the norms in India, most companies do not allow their employees to take up freelance jobs or side jobs, if they are on their payroll. Companies, typically, have a clause in their contracts that says that they cannot take up secondary jobs. Breaching this clause can even lead to termination and have legal implications too. Last week, Wipro Executive Chairman Rishad Premji termed this practice cheating. “There is a lot of chatter about people moonlighting in the tech industry. This is cheating – plain and simple,” tweeted Premji a few days ago.
But with time, many companies are adopting flexible working norms. For example, Swiggy, as per its recent declaration, has adopted an “industry first” policy, which means its employees can take up gigs or projects outside of their primary jobs.
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