[srini1785]

Originally Posted by neil.jericho

Does anyone really expect these multi billion dollar companies to have off the books cash payments that will be made to special freelance employees who do not have ID cards, access to their buildings, a contract, access privileges to secured networks, company laptops etc? How do they balance their books before each audited quarterly financial report gets created?

I do understand but payments to a service provider, legal account of a relative or a sodexho coupon should be sufficient to hide their tracks?.

Point being, When you know what you are doing is illegal at least make sure to do it properly without getting caught.

[ritedhawan]

This company had the audacity to fire 300 employees just because of what they call 'Moonlighting'!.

Did these employees were not giving their upmost during their working hours? Did these employees were lagging in terms of their performance?, Did these employees frequently did not show up to work? ..etc. Were these and many more reasons which I have not enumerated here, in isolation or in unison were the reasons due to which these 300 employees were laid off? : I Don't think so.

They were laid off just because they were What they call 'Moonlighting'!!!? People like us who languish at the bottom of the ladder and thanks to WFH have been inured to believe that 'continue post working hours' as its by default in WFH!. Those like us who according to the current rate at which the prices rise find it difficult to make ends meet. If they find a recourse to a recreation which pays , which may alleviate our predicament. These so called companies call its as 'Moonlighting'! . What competition are these IT companies referring to?

Ten years ago, I had the misfortune of working for this company. Even at that time it used to be the lowest Paymaster in the Industry for the position I was working for. I used to take a metro and then walk up to the office. On my way to office there was this graffiti which mentioned 'Corporate Slave' followed by an arrow pointing to the direction of their office. That's what these companies consider the people that work for them at the lowest rung. Fortunately for me, within the span of 10 months , I had left that company.

[amoghchaphalkar]

Samurai and Poloman have hit the nail on the head with their posts. Unfortunately, the definition of moonlighting is being dictated by one guy who woke up one day and decided to fire 300 people because he felt they were not "loyal". Moonlighting = one primary and one or more secondary income streams - usually from completely unrelated areas to your primary income source. Moonlighting is not having two full-time jobs, and Moonlighting = bad ethics is a completely wrong correlation.

It is ridiculous for IT companies to talk about ethics only when it suits them. These guys prospered by sending programmers overseas on tourist visas and making them "work" full-time on billable projects. Where were the ethics then? Where is Wipro's loyalty to the laws of the land? Are you telling me Rishadh Premji is unaware of this practice?

The employee using the "trade secrets" argument also does not hold any water from an "ethics" point of view. The IT services companies have also benefitted from someone else's "trade secrets". Do these organisations work for only one customer in a specific domain? Do they not learn from Customer A and apply that knowledge to bag a project from Customer B where A & B are competitors? Are resources not "shared" regularly between competitor projects? How many "off the record" discussions happen in meeting rooms? Mr. Ethics not invited to those meetings?

[chandu]

Originally Posted by ritedhawan

This company had the audacity to fire 300 employees just because of what they call 'Moonlighting'!.

Ten years ago, I had the misfortune of working for this company. Even at that time it used to be the lowest Paymaster in the Industry for the position I was working for. I used to take a metro and then walk up to the office. On my way to office there was this graffiti which mentioned 'Corporate Slave' followed by an arrow pointing to the direction of their office. That's what these companies consider the people that work for them at the lowest rung. Fortunately for me, within the span of 10 months , I had left that company.

Its possible that you have not read the earlier messages in the thread. The guys who were fired were doing 2 jobs simultaneously. The company found this due to two PF contributions in the PF statement. This is totally unacceptable to any company and this is clearly not "moonlighting". Wipro has over 1L employees and they fired just 300, so obviously this is not a huge issue (<0.3% people). These guys were not "Laid off", they were fired, big difference.

Take it easy with your anger against Wipro, they have their issues like any other company.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by neil.jericho

a. Firstly, you have to understand Wipro's DNA. From day 1, each employee learns about the "Spirit of Wipro". It is based on three traits
- Intensity to win,
- Act with sensitivity and
- Unyielding Integrity.
These are not empty words pasted on the walls of its development centers, by the HR and Ops teams. It is a culture system that is practiced in the organization, from the top down. Whatever else one might say about the company, you cannot take away its DNA. Every Wipro employee knows that integrity is sacrosanct.

Originally Posted by ritedhawan

Ten years ago, I had the misfortune of working for this company. Even at that time it used to be the lowest Paymaster in the Industry for the position I was working for. I used to take a metro and then walk up to the office. On my way to office there was this graffiti which mentioned 'Corporate Slave' followed by an arrow pointing to the direction of their office. That's what these companies consider the people that work for them at the lowest rung. Fortunately for me, within the span of 10 months , I had left that company.

Are you guys talking about the same company?

Looks like the difference is as stark as the difference between moonlighting and overemployment.

[Pulse500]

Originally Posted by 2000rpm

There are no GREYs when it comes to Ethics!! Its Black OR White.

Depending upon the employment contract you sign, the black and white is pretty clear.

If you sign a Wipro appointment letter, you have to adhere to it. If you sign the Swiggy Appointment letter, you have to adhere to that one.

I 100% back Wipro for their actions!!

I fully agree. In fact, some organizations also have clauses in their contracts that disallow employees to join competition (direct or indirect) for a certain period after separation (~6 months cooling period).

All the companies I have worked in past had non-disclosure agreements to prevent any leak of sensitive data (internal, customers, suppliers, regulators etc), prevent insider trading and disallowed any direct or indirect interaction with media. Any potential leak of business sensitive information (and now added, violation of GDPR) is taken very seriously.

[charanreddy]

I don’t understand why it is so tough or unbelievable that Wipro fired 300 employees for doing a double job, in violation of their contract.

Say Wipro has an financial institution A for a client with millions tied up in revenues and the employee who has signed several contracts and NDAs is found working for another company with out informing Wipro. There is no way for Wipro to know for client he is working for or whether there is conflict of interest or not. I am sure Wipro would like to err on the side of caution and fire the employees lest it face huge reputation risks and fines. In some instances the client may also face huge fines especially if this employee’s actions can be construed to be illegal. Financial crimes are treated much more harshly vs non financial crimes and many reputed leaders have spent many years in jail.

Most companies I know have business ethics officers (BEO) who can be reached for obtaining permission to work in a non-conflicting rule. I have done so myself and hence know this first hand. If Wipro BEO’s are not rational and reject even legitimate requests then find another job with another company which does follow these ethics.

I am not arguing Wipro is perfect or even fair to new
Joiners. I had an offer for them post my graduation where the salary was comparable to a house keep working in 4 households :( or an auto rickshaw driver , so I know how unfair they can be. That doesn’t mean you get to do two jobs with out informing your employer. As a professional in addition to your skills , you are also judged for ethics. I would not hire a person regardless of how talented he or she was if I knew the ethics were shaky.

[kovilkalai]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Are you guys talking about the same company?

Looks like the difference is as stark as the difference between moonlighting and overemployment.

I think it can be. While I WANT companies to pay a liveable wage, they are governed by market pressures. They can CHOOSE to offer the least possible wage allowed under law. The only time these companies seriously looked at wage revisions was in the last 12-18 months because the market spoke. They can do this AND define cultural traits like integrity, winning attitude and so on.

If we have a problem with this, find a company that pays more. Or lobby your government to institute a minimum wage or restrictions on working hours along with strict overtime laws.

As an example, I find it silly that many people and politicians in the USA have blamed Walmart and Amazon for poor wages and working conditions, but no one seems to vote to fix these issues. Simply put, if you don't want players to Mankad, you can't shame players. Get the ICC to fix the rules.

[zalaps]

Originally Posted by Samurai

What Wipro/Infy is saying is not honest. Because they are so huge, they are in every industry. So, if an employee moonlights for any industry, they claim the employee works for competition. But the employee is doing insurance software maintenance doing day, him working for banking industry at night shouldn't be considered working for competitor, just because Wipro/Infy also has a division for banking.

Quoted just to say thanks! Thanks Samurai for all you wisdom and insights not only on this thread but all IT industry related threads.

We have to accept that in current context word moonlighting is used for over-employment.

There are layers of this moonlighting-overemployment combo.

1. Someone does completely different work outside work hours. Say, engineer doing uber duty post 8 hours.
2. Someone does free(open source) work outside work hours. Say, engineer contributing to open source software development for free.
3. Someone does same skill work for few hours outside work hours for some compensation. Say, engineer helps some other company for couple of hours a day for lumpsum pay.
4. Someone does same skill work as full time job over and above current job outside work hours for some compensation (actual moonlighting). Say, engineer working for startup after work hours for full 6-8 hours in exchange of pay/equities.
5. Someone does same skill work as full time offical job in parallel to current official job within same hours. This is Wipro case.

According to this Mint Article, Wipro found out that these employees were having PF credits from other employers as well in parallel to Wipro Credits. Now this is like inviting your employer to do logical next step.
https://www.livemint.com/companies/n...784704705.html

[sentifool]

I have somewhat anecdotal experience in this regard. At my previous employer(A early stage startup) moonlighting was taboo. The founder or management would call it unethical immoral and what not. Coming to my current employer(largish firm acquired by one of the MAANGs), moonlighting is allowed, and even in some cases encouraged, as rightly mentioned by folks above that time outside work is outside the control of an employer. Also note both these jobs have been fully remote.

In Wipro case, the people should have used their best judgement to not moonlight for competitors, other than that I see moonlighting can help the employers in the long term if it keeps their employees happy and productive.

[apachelongbow]

Working in multiple companies or moonlighting as it is called today comes with its own set of problems. If you legally want to work with multiple employers don't expect any employer to fork out for your retirement and medical benefits. Afterall why should they? Also don't expect any loyalty bonus or gratuity etc. Even terms like job security will not be sacrosanct. When the company wants to fire staff, they will naturally fire the temporary staff and moonlighters before touching loyal employees. Remember you can't have your cake and eat it too as the old proverb goes. The best example of a moonlighter? Your friendly neighborhood housemaid. She will 'moonlight' in several households but doesn't recieve any retirement or medical benefits as per law. That's because the law can't decide on who will bear her overhead/expenses.

[ellip5i5]

People with talent and time on their hands find means to generate additional sources of income. Let me give two examples to illustrate why this is a grey area and will go on to shape the future of work.

Example 1 - I am aware of friends who hold technology jobs abroad at premier institutions while also opening sub contracting agencies in India registered in the names of their family. The subcontracted work is taking up by them post their day jobs and having really good labour laws in the west helps them spend only the needed 7-8 hours at work everyday, leaving the rest for other work. This i believe is true moonlighting and because it transcends national borders, legality of it is very difficult to gauge.

Example 2 - There are platforms like Kaggle, Topcoder (Owned by Wipro incidentally) etc where passionate people spend their time in learning and also delivering work at the same time. These are encouraged by several IT companies as they help employees in sharpening their skills. Would this also be deemed moonlighting?

[Samurai]

I added a poll with the various forms of OE/ML we are discussing. I have picked the bottom two, since I don't think the employer must have a say in it. BTW, I am an employer too.

[V.Narayan]

Folks forgive me for this ignorant question. No disrespect meant to any member. The question is based on my general observation.

Question: I wonder why every IT industry related thread ends up with half of the posts whining, moaning and grumbling of how the industry sucks, pay is so low, employers are evil, supervisors are morons, employers are unethical, we are slaves stuck in the grinding machine etc. Pick any IT thread under Shifting Gears and the lament is the same. My question to IT employees is this - why do we insist on working in an industry that is so terrible when most incumbents specialized not in computer sciences or software coding but civil, mechanical, textile, electrical, chemical etc engineering. The other industries are forever short of engineers because all of them want to go to IT regardless of their specialization and then apparently the crib session starts. We are all adults here who chose to work in the IT industry at company X or Y after reading the appointment letter. No one forced us. Why not own our decisions, or change the decision. Cribbing gets us no where except to ensure we get stuck because we constantly believe we are virtuous but the other guy (employer) is evil.

Those of us who have the DNA and courage to become entrepreneurs via the moonlighting route won't be grumbling on a thread like this because the very nature of griping and entrepreneurship don't mix. As an entrepreneur twice over I can say that hand on heart.

[TorqueyTechie]

Originally Posted by Samurai

I added a poll with the various forms of OE/ML we are discussing. I have picked the bottom two, since I don't think the employer must have a say in it. BTW, I am an employer too.

Is there a way to fix an incorrect voting? I have by mistake selected the 5th option too when I wanted to select only 4th.