Every day Diya, a 32-year-old from Bangalore, logs on remotely for an eight-hour shift as a software engineer in an IT company. She works hard – but once the workday is over, she stays in professional mode: logging on to her second job, also in IT. “I am very good with animation and am doing a project where actually I make almost as much as I do in my main job, working less hours. It also helps me hone my skills and increase my revenue stream,” she says.
Diya is moonlighting: holding down a full-time job, while simultaneously selling her skills to another employer. She doesn’t see anything wrong with it; her organisation requires her to work around 40 hours per week, and as long as she does that honestly, she believes there’s no reason she shouldn’t have a side hustle.
Yet not everyone is so blasé about moonlighting. Rishad Premji, the chairman of Indian tech and consulting firm Wipro, which recently fired 300 workers for taking second jobs with rival companies, spoke out strongly about moonlighting in the tech industry: “This is cheating - plain and simple,” he tweeted.
While the phenomenon exists in other nations, it’s a contentious debate in India, particularly within the tech sector. Veena Gopalakrishnan, a partner specialising in employment law at AZB & Partners, Bangalore, says that while moonlighting isn’t new in India, it’s “become more rampant post-pandemic, with employees working remotely, infrequent or relaxed employer supervision, and increased time and bandwidth for employees to take up another job”.
Motivated or ‘cheating’?
That some people are moonlighting is an open secret in the Indian tech sector. According to a survey by Mumbai-based Kotak Institutional Equities, nearly 65% of IT employees said they or someone they knew had been moonlighting or pursuing part-time opportunities while working from home time.
This is no surprise – it’s a young workforce, in a big, developing sector. IT companies with huge numbers of employees struggle to create a sense of ownership and loyalty among their workforces. Young tech workers, meanwhile, are fully bought into hustle culture; getting ahead financially often takes more money than one job pays. Salaries are comparatively high in Bangalore, India’s IT capital, but so too are living costs. As well as increasing earnings, many workers also want to upskill or pursue a passion. And remote work has made doing this easier; workers can fit a second job around their main job, and reap the benefits.
Rajan, 28, works full time for a leading software company in Bangalore, and also has his own YouTube Channel, which he monetises through advertisements and runs anonymously. “I belong to a middle-class family and have ambitions of studying abroad, and this will help me fund it,” he says. “The pandemic made me realise that one has to be prepared for the unexpected and have a buffer of savings. I work from home, so I am able to manage both well.”
Diya rejects the idea that she might be cheating her primary employer, saying that she’s not slacking off at her job. “When I am a good performer at my primary job, and give it my best, and then work for someone else after working hours, I only think that makes me an extremely motivated and hard-working person, not one who is cheating or shirking.”
Yet as Wipro’s response to its moonlighting employees shows, employers may not share that view.
Employment-law expert Gopalakrishnan says, legally, the picture is complex – whether an employee can take an extra job or side-hustle depends predominantly on the employment contract with the primary employer. “Organisations usually include an ‘exclusivity clause’, which necessitates that the employee devotes their entire working hours to the business interests of the employer and does not engage in any other business or activity,” she says.
Some companies do allow employees to take on side-hustles or passion projects by prior agreement, provided there are no conflicts of interest, she adds, but it is rare for employers to be comfortable with employees taking jobs where “there is a conflict of interest, a risk to confidential or proprietary information, or likelihood of the employee’s productivity being impacted”.
Possible conflict of interest appeared to be at the heart of the Wipro firings. Chairman Rishad Premji said that the affected workers were moonlighting for the company’s competitors, something that he called a “complete violation of integrity in its deepest form”. And Pradeep Gopi, head of HR at Cloudphysician Health Care services and noted HR expert, says that this sentiment is understandable: “Most companies have an objection with moonlighting when their resources are used by the employee to advance a competitor’s business, or when the employee loses focus on the main job at hand thanks to the distraction of the secondary job.”
The Wipro firings have increased conversations around the topic; some companies have issued dire warnings to employees not to work for other firms, or are trying to increase worker monitoring. Other business leaders are taking a more relaxed line, arguing that young people are only trying to get ahead. What’s clear is that, as technology opens up more avenues for ambitious young workers to sell their skills and top up their income, companies will need to work out what they will and will not allow workers to do in a way that makes sense to both parties.
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