News

Moonlighting: Can IT companies tell their employees not to take up other jobs?

While some IT employees are pursuing their interests, other employees have taken up additional software jobs to sharpen their skills and to earn more money.

Written by : Jahnavi, Rajeswari Parasa

On September 13, IT major Infosys sent out an email to all its employees asking them to refrain from moonlighting and warned them of termination of employment, if found doing so. A month before that, Swiggy, the food delivery company, had announced that it would permit its employees to moonlight and they could take up any kind of alternative work outside of their work, with terms and conditions. The contrary stands from two companies has spurred an ethical debate about moonlighting, a term for those who take up work opportunities outside their companies. The financial difficulty that arose during the pandemic for many is suspected to have pushed people to take up multiple jobs, forcing companies to address this issue.

While the usual working time for an employee is 8 to 9 hours a day, employees feel that what they do after their working time cannot be restricted by the company. Sai Kiran Kannan, who primarily works as a data privacy analyst, also moonlights as a freelance journalist and shuttles between Singapore and Bengaluru. Speaking to TNM, he says that he has been freelancing for media organisations like India Today, The Diplomat, Zenger News and others. "It was always my passion to tell stories and my employers knew this too. I regularly share my work with them, be it my video stories, text stories or debates," he says. 

In terms of managing time, he feels it is important to understand that the primary employer will have to be the top priority and there needs to be an ethical way of managing multiple professions. "If I can be productive, deliver things on time and be an asset to my primary employer, there will be no questions asked. It becomes a problem, when my secondary profession has a conflict of interest or if I use my office supplies or assets to work on my secondary profession deliverables or if I do them during my office hours," he explains. While Sai Kiran says he is pursuing his passion, there are other employees who take up additional software jobs for moonlighting to sharpen their skills and to earn more money. 

Anand (name changed) works for a US-based company and moonlights for two other companies. “My work involves testing, and that would be done in less than a couple of hours, leaving the remaining time free. So why not opt for other work and make money in our free time?” he questions. Anand adds that several employees who work from the US also assign their job to someone else (proxies) by offering half of their salary packages. People usually apply for second jobs, through popular job sites, while not disclosing their current employment and also find freelancing opportunities through their friends and colleagues. 

Cannot work 24/7 for one company

Though dual employment is prohibited in general and employees are made clear about this in the offer letter itself, members from the IT employee unions argue that this should pertain to the work hours and not all 24 hours. P Parimala, President of Forum for IT Employees, says, “The IT industry, through its employment contract, regulates that the employee should not be employed elsewhere. In this way, they control not only the working timing but also the leisure time of the employee. 

Earlier, employees would spend a large part of their time commuting as IT offices tend to be on the outskirts of the city. Now with work from home culture, employees find more time on their hands, and they use it to work elsewhere, sometimes to pursue their passion." Parimala contends that while companies can try to control confidentiality and conflict of interest when employees take up another job, they should not interfere in what their employees do in their free time. She adds that when IT companies do not have regulated work hours and do not compensate employees for overtime work, which is a common practice, it is unfair of them to deprive employees of opportunities to make more money elsewhere. 

"The stipulations made in the employment contract are for a period of nine hours which an individual is employed for. But companies think that they own their entire life. That is not right. Employees have all the right to use their time to whatever purpose they want, beyond their office hours. Measures like having the right to disconnect and reducing work hours are necessary for a futuristic work culture. But considering the ongoing economic distress, people are using their free time to work on secondary income sources,” says Alagunambi Welkin, general secretary of Union of IT and ITES Employees (UNITE). He further observes that freelancing or dual employment happens more among mid-level employees with three to four years of work experience. Using their existing expertise, they sign up for small gig work from platforms where such work opportunities are posted.

What is the legal stand on moonlighting?

Alagunambi Welkin explains, “Employees are not at any disadvantage legally. There is no law that prevents dual employment. The employment contract is applicable only for the duration of employment and if there is any problem in delivering the committed work, there will be a mechanism to review it within the company.”

Despite this argument, employers are not always able to monitor employees’ activities even during their work hours. While some employees like Anand admit to working on other projects during the work hours of their primary job, there have also been reported instances of employees delegating their work to proxies and using their work hours for other tasks unrelated to their primary employer. While acknowledging such breaches, Welkin says,” If there is a breach of contract, where an employee works outside their company in their work time, then the company can give a warning, discuss the employee’s reasons – maybe they’re not getting exposure to a particular technology here or they badly need the money – and try to resolve the issue.”  

Welkin further adds, “Even if an employee is not able to perform or not able to meet a particular target, threatening termination without a dialogue, is injustice. The threat of termination affects an entire family.” He says there is no legal basis for clauses on conflict of interest as there are no such provisions in labour laws. “You can’t deny employment to a citizen of India, for the betterment of their livelihood. These clauses are constitutionally void. But unfortunately, we don’t have any regulation of employment contracts for IT companies and such clauses are used to threaten employees,” says Welkin.

Why has moonlighting surfaced now?

“Moonlighting is now seriously being discussed as there is a pushback from employees who are being asked to work from their offices. Employers have made many attempts to get employees back to offices, but they haven't succeeded,” adds Welkin. 

He further states, “Since the pandemic, IT has been one of the few sectors where job opportunities have continued to increase and salaries have also remained stable or gone up. But it affected secondary income sources in many families – for instance, someone's partner or other family members may have lost their job or had their income affected. The IT employees are trying to compensate for this loss. If there is a rise in 'moonlighting' or part time freelancing, it's an offshoot of the economic situation prevailing in the country.”

Welkin explains that the job insecurity in IT companies is forcing many to reskill or sharpen their skills for which there may not be a scope in their primary organisation. “But reskilling is a minor secondary benefit. In our discussions with employees, the main reason was financial distress due to COVID-19. Unless we look at the issue holistically, merely terminating employees is not a solution,” adds Welkin.

Issues of ethics and data breach 

One of the pressing problems IT companies face is protecting proprietary information. Employee contracts often have detailed clauses meant to ensure that employees do not share such information outside the company. Sundeep Kumar Makthala, Telangana IT Association (TITA) President, says, “Usually, the appointment letter itself states that if you're a full-time employee of the company, you cannot work somewhere else because companies need to protect their back-end data and patents. If my employee works for another competitor company, it can be a big loss. To avoid data leaks for critical or confidential projects in insurance and banking, the back-end data lies with service-based companies.”

However, even in cases where employees moonlight on similar projects as their primary job, Alagunambi Welkin says data theft isn’t always a serious concern. “In high-security projects, there is a lot of scrutiny. There are standards to ensure data security is kept a top priority. Even to enter into the development space, there are a lot of restrictions. The confidential data within the project is highly protected and not so easy to access or breach,” he says.

Sundeep insists that in any case, an employee working for a competitor can be a big loss for the employer. “While signing the appointment letter, the employer and employee sign an agreement that the employee accepts not to work elsewhere. So working in parallel with another company will be treated as a wrong practice. If dual employment is detected, they have all rights to terminate since the employee had accepted the condition … If someone is going for dual employment, they should have a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the first employer. If they take up a second job without the NOC, it is a wrong practice, regardless of the industry,” he says. 

Sundeep says that TITA has received 80 complaints in 2021 from employees regarding termination over dual employment. In many cases, they found that employees were appointing proxies to do their work, and training them on the tools to do their work on their behalf. He feels that companies might go softer on dual employment, if there is no conflict of interest. Citing an example, Sundeep says, "A fresher working in the BPO sector who has a lot of financial commitments, moonlights as a cab driver. The skillset is completely different, and even if the company finds out, it will not treat it as a serious issue, since it's not a competitor and there is no threat of data leak."

However, employees feel that some Indian companies plainly see their employees as numbers who have to deliver regardless of what may come and do not care about their welfare or their career interests. "It may have worked in the early 2000s but not now! Today's India loves multi-tasking and pursuing passions," says Sai Kiran.

Also Read

How Modi govt is redirecting investments from other states to Gujarat

Inside Bengaluru’s ‘Kannadiga vs Outsider’ divide

‘Adani hosted, Amit Shah attended’: Sharad Pawar confirms 2019 meeting to discuss alliance

Shivendra Singh interview: How ‘Celluloid Man’ PK Nair led him to work on film heritage

The story behind The Hindu journalist Mahesh Langa’s arrest