Moonlighting — the practice of working on other jobs while already in employment — has emerged as a major concern for the HR department of IT service firms, as they continue to pursue a work-from-home model.
In an internal post, IT major Infosys has warned its employees that dual employment is not in the firm’s code of conduct and such action could lead to the termination of the employee’s contract.
The Infosys email reportedly informed the employees about sections in their offer letter that warns them against accepting positions with other companies unless approved by the company itself.
“At Infosys, dual employment is not permitted according to the Employee Handbook and Code of Conduct,” the email read.
“Any violation of these clauses will lead to disciplinary action which could even lead to termination of employment.”
A query sent to Infosys did not elicit any response till the time of publication.
Recently, Rishad Premji, executive chairman of Wipro and a former chairman of IT industry body Nasscom, expressed his concern about the growing moonlighting trend and called it ‘‘cheating’’ in a Twitter post.
Former Infosys director Mohandas Pai had said low entry-level salary has contributed to moonlighting.
During the pandemic, Pai said, there was a surge in gig opportunities as “everything went digital”.
“If you don’t pay people well, they say I want to earn more money and here is the easy way of earning well because technology is available...I get paid in dollars very well, I can earn more... and so that is attractive,” he said.
A survey by Kotak Institutional Equities of 400 people across the IT/ITES sector showed 65 per cent of them have either themselves or someone they know to have engaged in moonlighting while working from home.
Among the highly competitive IT services industry, the main causes of concern are multiple jobs can affect health and productivity, create a conflict of interest and can even lead to data breaches. Observers said that it would be difficult to reverse the trend now.
“After the last two years of Covid pandemic, a couple of things have happened – there is a sense of insecurity among employees regarding their job which has prompted them to seek more than one employer. Also, the IT services work today is no longer geographically restricted, which means talent has become omnipresent,” industry expert Kalyan Kar said.
“It is difficult to reverse the trend now. What companies can do now is to have a more robust moonlighting policy highlighting the dos and don’ts for the employees,” he told The Telegraph.
Not working for another company in stipulated work hours, not working with common clients, and non-disclosures relating to IPs could be among some of the measures.
