Moonlighting debate: Rajeev Chandrasekhar backs trend, but cautions against contract violations

Joining the moonlight debate in the software industry, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, said that the companies should understand the structural shift in the industry and that captive work models would fail if applied.  

Chandrasekhar, addressing the annual forum of the Public Affairs Forum of India on Friday, said: “Moonlighting represents two very significant phenomena. One, the entrepreneurial bug that has bitten every techie. Two, the talent deficit or demand for talent. For a company to forbid a young engineer from dabbling in a startup…they (companies) do not understand the change in the model.” 

Also read: Founders of Infosys, Flipkart, Zoho were moonlighting at their jobs, says Harpreet Singh Saluja of NITES

He added: “This is the age of employee-entrepreneurs and companies must now understand there has been a structural shift in the minds and attitudes of the young Indian tech workforce.” 

He also said that the days when employees signed up with big tech majors and spent their lives on the job were long gone. 

The moonlighting concept allows workers of a company to take up alternative jobs apart from their primary job to earn some extra money. When the pandemic started, the IT and software services industry adopted a remote-working model, because of which many employees could work on other projects. It is to be noted that Wipro chairperson Rishad Premji sparked the moonlighting debate in the country last month voicing his displeasure on the concept of moonlighting.  Earlier this week, he revealed Wipro had fired 300 employees over moonlighting. Premji defending his action said that the company had found 300 people to be moonlighting and working for competitors in the last few months. He later said that those employees were terminated by the company. 

Also read: 'Very harsh decision': IT employees shocked at Wipro firing staff over moonlighting 

The industry is divided over the policy as many have argued that moonlighting is unethical and such practices can only have short-term gains. Leading IT firms including Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys have condemned moonlighting, calling it cheating. Just like Wipro, Infosys too has warned its staff on working on a second job while having a contract with them. The management has said that dual employment may lead to termination from the job. 

On the other hand, C P Gurnani, CEO of Tech Mahindra, in an exclusive chat with Business Today had said that moonlighting was all right if employees kept up their efficiency and productivity. 

Also read: Moonlighting is going to be a fact of life: Mohandas Pai

Talking about ethical practices, Chandrasekhar clearly said that under any circumstances, he was not supportive of employees violating contracts, which may include non-compete or confidentiality clauses. “I do agree with one part of the moonlighting argument that if one is a contracted employee of a company, and your contract says, non- compete, confidentiality clauses, then if you violate that you’re obviously running afoul of the contract law.” 

In India, two jobs or dual employment is prohibited under the Factories Act. Most companies do not allow their employees to take up freelance jobs or side jobs, if they are on their payroll. Companies, typically, have a clause in their contracts that says that they cannot take up secondary jobs. Breaching this clause can even lead to termination and have legal implications too. 

Also read: IBM boss is against moonlighting, says dual employment is not ethically right