Crisis arose for those working in two places simultaneously
Those working together in the information technology (IT) sector will face trouble as apex IT major Happiest Minds said ‘moonlighting’ is unacceptable and it violates the contract of the job. The company said that some employees involved in such activities have been fired in the last six to 12 months. It had around 4,581 employees as on September 30, 2022, with the company registering a 33.7 per cent growth in net profit in the second quarter of the current financial year.
Although Happiest Minds said moonlighting is not very prevalent within the company, it did not give the exact number of employees against whom action has been taken in this case. The issue of working separately along with the job has become a hot topic of discussion in the IT industry after Rishad Premji, chairman of IT giant Wipro, termed Moonlighting as a “hoax”. In the last few weeks, many IT companies have said on this issue that they do not allow two places to work together. When an employee does any work independently other than his regular job, it is technically called ‘moonlighting’.
Joseph Anantaraju, vice chairman of Happiest Minds, said, “We are very clear with our employees that we will not accept this (Moonlighting). When you sign a contract or offer of employment, you are only that company. agree to work for.” Asked whether the company has received cases of employees involved in Moonlighting, Anantaraju said, “We have come across some such cases and we immediately removed them because that is a message you want to convey to the company.”
Anantaraju said that even if an employee has worked only for a few hours, there is no way to trace it and that is why we took this action. He said, “This action has been taken between the last six to 12 months. We are clear that you cannot do moonlighting. If you want to do some voluntary activities in an industry not related to the IT sector, that is a different matter. But for us You have to dedicate all your time to the happiest minds and work here.”
Anantaraju pointed out that there is not a lot of moonlighting activities and examples in the company. He said that for this reason the company has started calling its people back to the office. “Once you’re back in the office, a lot of these things have little scope and can be eliminated and recognized long ago,” he said. Some companies like TCS have raised concerns over this while Wipro has suspended 300 employees. At the same time, companies like Tech Mahindra have shown a soft stance on ‘moonlighting. PLC/GT
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