Moonlighting by IT Professionals – Fair or Foul?
Wipro executive chairman Rishad Premji had termed this trend as cheating though IT employees believe it's a result of poor resource management
Before delving into the actual issue, allow us to state unequivocally that Rishad Premji is absolutely right in describing the trend of IT professionals moonlighting as cheating, since it contravenes employment agreements with the employers.
All big IT companies (and even smaller ones) have written contracts with their staff that defines moonlighting jobs as illegal. However, what changed things in recent times is the pandemic that left some sections of the business with loads of free time or totally jobless. Not to mention the flexibility that a work-from-home experience allows.
It is money for some and boredom for others
Taking up side jobs alongside their regular ones became easier for all the above reasons. Those on the bench or had small tasks to fulfill each day, found that moonlighting kept the creative juices flowing and some extra cash didn’t hurt. “While commenting on moonlighting, these big guys should also remember that we took severe salary cuts and needed extra cash,” says an employee based in Mysuru who took up side jobs.
While Rishad Premji may have used a strong word like “cheating” to describe the process, the biggest worry for enterprises with regards to moonlighting is that rival companies could use such moonlighters to work on stuff that could be a conflict of interest. “Imagine a staff member working on a module that is part of our company’s IP?” asks an HR professional based out of Mumbai and working for a global team.
It’s the rule rather than the exception
A report published in the Hindu BusinessLine quotes a recent survey by Kotak to suggest that as many as 65% of the 400-plus respondents admitted to moonlighting themselves or knowing someone who did it during the working from home phase. In fact, this trend is continuing even after employees have returned to their workplaces.
The latter part is giving nightmares to companies as some believe employee productivity could take a hit as working two jobs at the same time may cause faster burnout. However, even the enterprises privately acquiesce that the trend may not go away anytime soon, given that businesses aren’t actually engaging their staff to the best of their abilities.
Give us a challenging role, they say
We spoke off-the-cuff with some IT company employees about this trend. Only a small chunk of them were moonlighting, but there was consensus that companies aren’t challenging the creativity of code writers. “Most of the work we do only requires a copy-paste mentality and if smarter individuals look for creative ways to express their creativity,” one of the junior-most IT professionals we met told us.
In fact, most of these youngsters even pooh-poohed the idea that moonlighting works only in high-productivity countries such as the US. “Are you telling us that they’re more productive than us? That’s bunkum, as we are the Jugaad-makers who fix problems even at work while those guys in our head offices just give gyaan,” says another IT professional who spent the last couple of years on an offshore project.
Can transparency solve the issue?
Senior HR professionals that we spoke to believe that two-way transparency could be the answer. If companies discuss career aspirations and encourage employees to share details of their one-off moonlighting assignments, it could work better for both. Of course, it shouldn’t mean that companies reduce remunerations as a result of such discussions.
Does this mean that the era of gig work is here? Most employees do not think so. They feel that the need to bolster their wallets during the pandemic-enforced cash crunch was the prime reason for moonlighting while some feel it was necessitated by the boring jobs they encountered during their day jobs.
Either way, moonlighting as a concept has existed for a long time, though IT professionals may be among the latest of entrants into this field. It remains to be seen how companies respond to employees taking up side gigs in the future. What we do know though is that throwing the rulebook at them isn’t going to work.
