Infosys forewarned emails to the employees stating that moonlighting could result in termination, joining Wipro chairman Rishad Premji in calling the practice unethical.
The IT industry described ‘moonlighting’ policy under which employees take up side jobs outside regular work hours and referred to it as “cheating plain and simple.”
With taglines ‘No two-timing, no moonlighting’ and ‘No double lives’, Infosys said that employees cannot take up other assignments during or outside business hours.
The IT company emphasised in its communication that any violation in this regard will lead to disciplinary action that could include termination of employment, the report said.
It added that the shift to remote work has seen an uptick in moonlighting. The email said it has become easier, especially for IT employees, to hold a second job without their primary employer knowing. “This can pose serious challenges to our business such as impact on productivity, job performance, risk of data and confidential information leakage, etc," it read.
Without the consent of Infosys no employee can take full-time or part-time employment in any business activity. The same was mentioned in the employee’s offer letter.
During the two years of the pandemic, the moonlighting policy gained popularity among remote workers because it made it simple for many employees to work on additional side projects. According to a recent survey, 65% of IT/ITeS respondents were looking for part-time work. However, with several businesses, including IT firms, rolling back WFH, the policy has since become a contentious issue, with experts and the general public having differing viewpoints.
Moonlighting is treated differently by IT services companies than it is by some new-age Indian businesses. Recently, Swiggy announced that its employees could accept other jobs as long as they were performed outside of regular working hours and did not negatively impact their productivity at the food delivery business.
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