It is embarrassing to see the doyens of the Indian IT industry railing against moonlighting. For those not already inundated with its myriad explanation, it means holding jobs in two different organisations. Work from home during Covid-19 made it easier for employees to take advantage of the situation and expand their earnings.
This has IT CEOs fuming, saying it can disrupt the entire IT industry. As a result, people involved are being asked to leave. But is firing people a solution? Is moonlighting a criminal act? Is it a problem that needs to be tackled, or a systemic challenge that needs to be recognised and approached through a different perspective?
Moonlighting is a challenge and not a problem or a criminal act as the sector and various CEOs would have us believe. Yes, it creates conflict of interest, loss of fiduciary responsibilities when it comes to handling a client’s sensitive data or processes and, possibly, breach of contract. If business rivals get access to sensitive data due to moonlighting by employees of Indian IT companies, it can lead to lawsuits, loss of clients and, maybe, a larger distrust in the sector, but certainly not its end or death knell.
A mature approach would be to recognise the market forces that are creating this over-employment. Trying to stem market forces by firing employees is like trying to stop a river from flooding with a handful of sand. It won’t work and will adversely affect not just the companies but also create an environment of distrust between employees and companies. Distrust in an employer-employee relationship can lead to other challenges that are not even solvable. Hence, it’s better to address the challenge in the context it has arisen instead of playing a blame game between employers and employees.
As a first step, the sector and companies must recognise and acknowledge the market forces for second jobs or more than one job that is now available. Employees are uncertain about the longevity of their jobs as they have seen the trend of layoffs. Employers rarely think about the long-term impact of laying off employees on their reputation, but to protect the margins or maintain the growth in a quarter they fire people. Employees have accepted layoffs as part of their work life in the IT sector.
Every employee wants to maximise his earnings as he knows that the life of his skills is rapidly diminishing. Companies do not allow employees to maximise their earnings. Companies pay employees a fixed salary and expect full ownership over all the employee’s time, both in office and after office.
The industry must realise that if specific skills are in high demand, they can proactively shift their employees to a consulting model and pay them by the hour instead of a fixed monthly salary. A recognition of this model will at least staunch the flow of employees to their rivals. It may not stop the flow completely, but it will slow it down, as market demand and supply for specific skills will make certain employees overemployed. This cannot be corrected only through penalties; it will need incentives too. This is where the Indian IT services model needs to evolve, if it can charge its clients on output basis should it not be paying its employees for output too? It cannot insist that employees be committed 24×7, but get paid for only 6-8 hours. This is the systemic anomaly — a smart employee may actually be underemployed and finishing his output in an hour of office work, and is therefore deploying the remaining hours moonlighting for other companies.
Now, companies would like to increase output without increasing cost/salaries. They would also like to keep this uneven balance of hiring at fixed salary and charging per hour from clients. This is the systemic flaw that makes employees feel they are being exploited along with the clear desire to earn more. These factors have moved moonlighting from a fringe phenomenon to the mainstream. The unfortunate hypocrisy is that most CXOs including the HR heads of these companies have been moonlighting for decades. They invest in startups, spend time mentoring them, almost like a second job that may be unpaid to avoid conflicts but is chosen to hedge future risks. Promoters particularly cannot talk about moonlighting as they continuously invest in multiple businesses and sit on multiple boards. But they do not want their employees to earn more or hedge their risks. Especially as this would be a violation of employees’ contract as full-time employees. In this scenario, it would be best to convert employees into consultants rather than fire them or paint them as criminals.
Penalties like firing employees or deriding them for doing two jobs or expecting them to devote their non-working hours will not really address the challenge. In a larger sense, this challenge can be used by companies to evaluate their systems and people to study and determine where employees are underpaid and underemployed. The HR department may have to work harder than ever before to carry out this exercise but it is the need of the hour. A system audit should evaluate access and exposure of employees to sensitive data and look at where possible conflicts can arise.
The challenge of moonlighting will not go away just by scaring employees into submission. Companies that will work too hard at submission will suffocate their best employees and see them moving away. Promoters and CXOs should seriously desist from taking hard and extreme positions on this issue as it paints them as feudal lords demanding full fealty.
Nasscom, the industry body that represents the industry when it comes to lobbying with the government, should represent the employees view also at the industry level. The industry association should understand that employees’ matters can quickly escalate into local, state or even national political conflict. If moonlighting becomes a political issue, then it will go into another stratosphere. As the elected government will work in favour of the voters (employees) rather than the corporates. A realistic approach is the best solution to this challenge. Not the adversarial one that the company honchos have adopted against its most important resource.
K Yatish Rajawat is a public policy researcher at Centre for Innovation in Public Policy 011 an initiative of YR Foundation for Innovative Policy Research. www.cipp.in, feedback at [email protected]. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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