Infosys Warns Employees on Moonlighting, Says it May Lead to Termination of Employment
Infosys warns employees of dual employment according to the employee handbook and the code of conduct
In a warning, IT major Infosys Ltd has told its employees against moonlighting. They said that the practice may result in termination of the Employee Contract as it is against the company’s rules. In an internal post, the company said as per its code of conduct, dual employment will not be allowed.
Notably, this happened after an IT crackdown on the practice of taking up a second job. Previously, it was Wipro who had warned its employees.
On September 12, Infosys sent an email to employees writing, “Remember – NO TWO-TIMING – NO MOONLIGHTING (sic).” In the mail, Infosys said that moonlighting is the practice of working on a second job during or outside of regular business hours, adding that dual employment is not permitted as per the company’s employee handbook.
The email reads, “At Infosys, dual employment is not permitted as per the employee handbook and the code of conduct. As clearly stated in your offer letter, you agree not to take employment, whether full-time or part-time as director/ partner/ member/ employee of any other organisation/ entity engaged in any form of business activity without the consent of Infosys. The consent may be given subject to any terms and conditions that the company may think fit and may be withdrawn at any time at the discretion of the company.”
“This can pose serious challenges to our business such as the impact on productivity, job performance, risk of data theft and confidential information leakage, etc.” it further added.
However, this email echoed a tweet of Rishad Premji of Wipro, who described moonlighting as cheating.
“There is a lot of chatter about people moonlighting in the tech industry. This is cheating – plain and simple,” he said in a tweet last month.
N. Ganapathy Subramaniam, chief operating officer of Tata Consultancy Services said, “Employers need to inculcate ethics and being right… If you make something like this for short-term gains, in the long-term, you will lose out—that kind of a message has to go to the employees.”
