Team-BHP - Moonlighting | Are you for it or against? | Wipro & Infosys frown, Swiggy is okay

From the Times Of India daily newsletter:

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Pink slips: Wipro boss Rishad Premji has said that his soap-to-tech business group has fired 300 employees for "moonlighting" in recent times. He expressed his anguish calling it "cheating, plain and simple". He said playing in a band over the weekend is different from secretly working for rivals.

What is moonlighting? It originally referred to taking up a nighttime job by employees who worked in a regular 9-to-5 daytime job. So, moonlighting is taking up a secondary job beyond a full-time employee's usual job.
Who all are talking about it? Some of the big tech companies including IBM and Infosys have joined the chorus calling moonlighting "an unethical practice".

How this debate began: Swiggy, which delivers your favourite food, came up with an "industry-first" Moonlighting Policy, allowing employees to take up external projects "based on internal approvals". Moonlighting included "volunteering with an NGO, working as a dance instructor, or content creation for social media". This Swiggy idea has not gone down well with other companies.

The furore: Wipro's Rishad Premji said, "There is no space for someone to work for Wipro and competitor XYZ and they would feel exactly the same way if they were to discover the same situation." Earlier, Infosys warned its employees against moonlighting in an email, citing clauses in the offer letters that say "no double lives", "no two timing" and "no moonlighting".

Conflict of interest? A full-time employee usually signs a contract that bars her from working for the employer's competition. Any conflict of interest is taken seriously by the employers.

But there are voices, such as former Infosys director Mohandas Pai, arguing that employment is a contract of pay-for-work for 'n' number of hours-a-day, and that the employees are free to do whatever they wish in their free time.

I agree with the Wipro head that it's unethical to work for your competitor while you're in their payroll in the designated hours. But I don't think we can call that moonlighting. The employees who were fired were clearly working for competitors.

If companies like Wipro are saying they are going to ban moonlighting, which is working in hobbies or other pet projects outside business hours that is used to create income, then it doesn't make any sense- why should Wipro be bothered with our life beyond work? Is this some way of ensuring that employees are on call 24/7?

But I have a feeling the Wipro head is misquoted and the headlines have been sensationalised.

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Originally Posted by 2000rpm (Post 5408292)

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

+1

If the employment contract says it isn't allowed, then moon lighting is illegal. No two ways about it.

If one wants to fight against it then please get the employment contract amended.

Per my experience, people working on more than one job aren't able to do complete justice to one or the other. Again, this is my experience with co-workers, friends or service providers.

I think we need to define moonlighting since there is a confusion about it.

Moonlighting means working when the moon is up, which is working late at night.

Moonlighting | Are you for it or against? | Wipro & Infosys frown, Swiggy is okay-moonlighting.png

There is nothing unethical of this one. People in free countries are free do what they want in their free time, outside of the 8 hours they have pledged to their primary job. Steve Wozniak was moonlighting for Apple while working for Hewlett Packard (HP). HP didn't care, otherwise we wouldn't have Apple company or any of the products Apple created.

However, recently Indian media and even IT giants are talking about the practice of some employees taking up second full-time job, while working from home, pledging the same 8 hours to another employer. This is referred in slang as overemployed. This is possible only because of working from home (WFH).

https://www.itprotoday.com/career-de...ng-it-industry

This is not moonlighting. In this thread we are really discussing overemployment, people holding two 8-hours jobs in the same shift, while doing injustice to both jobs.

Personally I think taking up two regular jobs is unethical but my reason is completely opposite. You are taking up an opportunity for some other person who may not even have one job.

However if you are doing code writing as your day job but are also doing freelance work by the side, no matter what the work is, even if it is writing code, I am all for it.

See everyone should have a chance to get a regular job for necessities. If you want to spend your personal time to make money that you can splurge, I do not see anything unethical or illegal.

Against.

It's very easy for a person to use the skills and knowledge he has gained at his primary company at another company, in such situations. While the experience and knowledge can flow both ways, people can inadvertently use Intellectual property of one company in another. And this is where the key conflict will happen.

Companies like IBM clearly mention in their terms of employment that an employee Can Not do similar work in parallel for other companies, though they allow employees to do any other work in their free time such that there is no clash of times, no clash of interests, and the employee not neglecting any of the company's work in terms of time, time schedules or dedication.

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Originally Posted by condor (Post 5408315)

It's very easy for a person to use the skills and knowledge he has gained at his primary company at another company, in such situations. While the experience and knowledge can flow both ways, people can inadvertently use Intellectual property of one company in another.

Doesn't this happen when any employee quits and joins a competitor? Is he not supposed to use any knowledge gained in the previous company?

I think the main issue highlighted in this thread is the trend of taking two full-time jobs using the cover provided by WFH.

For it - If it is a minor gig done by employees with their own resources (like laptops) outside work hours without impacting their quality of work and deliverables.

Against - If employees take two full-time jobs and perform poorly in both. Honestly, you can focus on work for only so many hours a day without impacting the quality and efficiency.

Against, if the laptop, IP, or other data of the employer is used to do a side gig. This, I believe is both unethical and unlawful.

Two years back I was in the apartment association. We were shocked to learn that the security supervisor we appointed few months back was working in night shift in another apartment. He was directly in our rolls. But was literally moonlighting. The main concern from our side was his health and performance, when he is working two long back to back shifts. But after hearing his side of story that he was struggling in a costly city like Bangalore with his low income job and 4 kids we let him continue that.

This is the kind of moonlighting I would appreciate. But clever guys, fooling multiple employers with side by side monitors, mutually exclusive meeting calendars and to do lists, not feeling any sympathy for them.

I have said this before, this new wokeism and whataboutery spreading in the industry is not for any one's good. People specially youngsters should learn to respect work ethics, contracts and show some empathy and integrity to the hands that feed them. Else there is no company, no corporation or no synergy or no innovations.

I could only laugh when I read about Mohandas Pai's new found avatar as the messiah of 'long suffering' IT employees.

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But there are voices, such as former Infosys director Mohandas Pai, arguing that employment is a contract of pay-for-work for 'n' number of hours-a-day, and that the employees are free to do whatever they wish in their free time

History does not seem to suggest so. :)
https://www.forbes.com/2011/05/09/fo...h=56055c174006

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While his record in the finance department can only be described as stellar, his HR stint proved to be a bit controversial. He was unpopular among sections of the 130,000 employees for his radical policies. They resented him for forcing them to clock 9.15 hours every day and blamed him for thrusting on them a new HR model called iRace that led to hundreds getting demoted during the slowdown. A former board member describes him as an enfant terrible among Murthy's children.

Holding another full or half employment with another firm in the same or similar industry is a complete no-no. That in my opinion is cheating plain and simple. It is a reflection of the freedom WFH provided that as an IT code writer you could cheat and fool both paymasters. Working in your spare time in a non-competing industry, the proverbial flipping burgers concept, is more understandable especially for employees in the lower paygrades with familial responsibilities. In a company I am closely associated with which has ~15,000 employees we discovered 78 who were holding two jobs - ours and one more. We understandably sent them home and informed the other company too. Effectively the employee was cheating both and depriving some other young engineer a job.

Sadly in the IT software coding industry which itself is only a subset of the IT industry we observe a lot of I, me, myself while at the same time wanting all the job security and assurance of income a job with a big company brings but not wanting to abide by the rules of the playground they have chosen to be on. We can all have all the freedom we want by becoming self employed. But many don't do that for lack of ability or lack of courage.

As for Mohandas Pai - he reminds me of a long forgotten filmstar who pops up every now and then to make a daft comment to stay in the news. He is beyond his 'sell by' date.

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Originally Posted by poloman (Post 5408331)

I have said this before, this new wokeism and whataboutery spreading in the industry is not for any one's good. People specially youngsters should learn to respect work ethics, contracts and show some empathy and integrity to the hands that feed them. Else there is no company, no corporation or no synergy or no innovations.

+1+1

In my view, my employer can lay claim to about 45 hours of mine in a week out of the 168 total hours. What I do in the remaining 123 hours is my business and my employer oughtn't get involved in that.

If multiple firms in the same industry can engage the same consultants, same marketing / advertising agencies, same suppliers, same a bunch of other things - what is the problem in having the same employees? Why is there lesser trust in the employees' ability / willingness to keep their mouth shut over all these other actors?

"You can't do that since the employment contract says so" argument is strictly speaking, not valid. There have been instances where clauses in the employment contract have been held untenable - for example, non-compete clauses.

If you don't want me to work a second job, pay me what I expect to make from both jobs combined.