Rishad Premji, the chairman of Wipro, remarked that this is a flagrant breach of integrity in the most serious sense.
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| Image Source: Dainik Bhaskar |
Swiggy and Zomato approved of it; Infosys hated it, and now Wipro has let go of nearly 300 staff members as a result! As more people during the pandemic worked from home, the practise of moonlighting, often known as managing two jobs at once, began to gain popularity.
Managing a side job in addition to their regular employment can be an additional source of income for individuals. However, business leaders are becoming concerned because employees who moonlight could have their productivity affected or even work for competitors. Rishad Premji, chairman of Wipro, was described as calling moonlighting "cheating, plain and simple" last month. He has made sure that he and his business are able to back up this assertion, as all of the recent firings were due to personnel leading "double lives."
300 employees who were found to be working for one of Wipro's rivals while still on the company payroll were let off. It also happened when Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji openly voiced his opposition to moonlighting, describing the practise as dishonest and deceitful.
"The truth is that there are currently employees of Wipro who are also working directly for one of our rivals, and in the past three months, we have identified 300 such individuals. This is a flagrant breach of integrity in the most fundamental sense "Premji released a statement. At the 49th All India Management Association Convention, the chairman was speaking.
The definition of moonlighting itself, according to Rishad Premji, is having a second job covertly. People can be open and honest about topics like playing in a band or working on a project over the weekend as part of transparency. "It is an open conversation that two adults, the organisation and the individual, can make a choice about whether it works or does not work for them," he added in further clarification.
Premji separated apart the case of employees working covertly for rival companies and stated, "There is no room for someone to work for Wipro and rival XYZ, and if they learned the same thing, they would feel precisely the same way. I meant exactly that. I do, therefore, stand by what I said. If you are moonlighting in any way, I do believe that it is dishonest."
Moonlighting has been the topic of conversation in the industry for the past few months. Infosys, like Rishad Premji, had shown opposition to moonlighting by advising their staff against leading double lifestyles and working two jobs. Moonlighting is unethical, according to IBM India MD Sandip Patel, who made this statement later.
Is "moonlighting" legal in India?
The company's internal rules and code of conduct should certainly be taken into account in cases involving dual employment. The situation is more convoluted when it comes to the state, though.
Dual employment is prohibited in India, according to the Factories Act (1948), Section 60. The Shop and Establishments Act in each state, however, sets forth regulations that may vary from state to state. Even yet, the majority of these local laws impose restrictions on concurrent employment.
To quote Section 9 from Shops and Establishments Act, Delhi,
"No person shall work about the business of an establishment or two or more establishments or an establishment and a factory in excess of the period during which he may be lawfully employed under this Act."
Then there's Section 65 from Shops and Establishments Act, Mumbai:
"No employee shall work in any establishment, nor shall any employer knowingly permit an employee to work in any establishment, on a day on which the employee is given a holiday or is on leave in accordance with the provisions of this Act."
Many of the provisions of the aforementioned Acts, such as the prohibition on multiple employment, do not apply to IT companies. In essence, the enterprises have a lot of freedom to decide how to handle employee status.
How common is moonlighting in other nations?
In America, only federal personnel are allowed to handle several occupations. There are no other legislative provisions that specifically forbid moonlighting, but as before, it all hinges on the non-competition terms that each corporation has in place.
However, when contrasted with Asian nations like Japan, which are recognised for having a tighter work culture, the risk of being fired for moonlighting appears to be higher in these nations (even though a global statistical comparison is yet to be done). Given the financial strain brought on by the pandemic, the airline industry in Japan has become more tolerant. Budget airlines Jetstar Japan and Japan Airlines now permit employees to work multiple jobs so long as their productivity at their primary job is unaffected.
It remains to be seen whether these countries will adopt a national strategy that is moonlighting-centric given the uncertainty and confusion regarding dual jobs in this period.
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