At a time when most IT giants have been criticizing the practice of moonlighting, HCL's former CEO has backed employees.?HCL¡¯s former CEO Vineet Nayar, who?worked with the IT giant for over 19 years, from Dec 1993-Jan 2013,?has questioned the top management of companies, saying if their involvement in other companies as board members or as investors in startups amounts to moonlighting.
?60-year-old Nayar, also an author and philanthropist, took to LinkedIn to express his views on the issue of moonlighting - the practice of taking up multiple jobs, which has been a topic of heated debates recently amongst India¡¯s IT giants, including TCS, Wipro, IBM and Infosys. His post on LinkedIn has already garnered over 7,500 reactions, over 370 comments and 280 reposts.
The former CEO of HCL questioned top management of companies and wrote, ¡°Is senior management being part of other company boards moonlighting? When they invest their own money in startups and make profits, is that moonlighting? Is their trading in stock markets moonlighting?¡±
¡°Why call everything an employee does outside work as moonlighting,¡± he added.
Nayar also said moonlighting is ¡°unstoppable.¡± He said, ¡°Today all employees try to engage with the world outside and work in various forms. This is unstoppable.¡±
He suggested that organisations need to help employees navigate side gigs better to prevent a conflict of interest instead of trying to stop them.?
¡°Rather than try and stop them, an attempt must be made by organisations to canalise that trend as has been done with senior management of various companies and allow them to do so, so long as it is not in conflict with the organisation,¡± Nayar posted.
He also said that this would help employees be more productive at their day job. He noted, ¡°Organisations must understand that letting employees pursue something that interests them in their spare time, whether being done for money or otherwise, can turn out to be more productive for them.¡±
Even as recently as today, former HCL CEO Nayar took to LinkedIn again, praising Infosys' recent move to allow employees to do 'external' gig work. Here's what he posted.
On the other hand, reflecting on the moonlighting issue, Ramachandran Sundararajan, CPO At?HCLTech?had last week reportedly said during the Q2 earnings briefing, "Dual employment while working for HCLTech,?we do not approve of that. Everybody who signs up to work for?HCLTech is signing an employment contract which requires exclusivity. The requirements around confidentiality, and non compete... all those provisions that are there we expect our employees to honour those commitments,¡±
Fortunately,?moonlighting has not come up as a big problem within HCL?Technologies, he added.
Also Read:?Tech Mahindra CEO Supports Moonlighting, Says No Problem With Employees Taking Up Second Job
The debate on moonlighting in the IT sector had begun after Wipro chief Rishad Premji took to Twitter in August 2022, to say that the practice is "cheating". Since then, other industry leaders have come forward to clarify their Stance on the same.?
TCS COO Ganapathy Subramanian called it ¡°an ethical issue¡±? but also said that firing an employee can ruin his/her career, while IBM India director Sandip Patel called moonlighting ¡°ethically wrong.¡± Wipro and Infosys have claimed to even fire employees who were caught moonlighting.
For the latest and more interesting financial news, keep reading?Indiatimes Worth.?Click here.