"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world." - Oscar Wilde
Very simply put, people taking up extra work other than their full-time job, which is traditionally expected to be 9 to 5, without informing their current employer, is called moonlighting.
Recently this whole discussion came to the fore in India when Wipro's chairman Rishad Premji tweeted "There is a lot of chatter about people moonlighting in the tech industry. This is cheating - plain and simple."
Following this, last week, Wipro also sacked 300 employees stating the same reason, further explaining that they also worked for Wipro's competitors. Following suit, TCS, Infosys and IBM have also warned their employees that moonlighting is unethical and will lead to disciplinary action or even termination.
However, Tech Mahindra CEO, C P Gurnani, recently said that it is required to change with the times and also said, "I welcome disruption in the ways we work".
India's Union minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, yesterday joined this debate by tweeting in support of employees moonlighting if they wish to use their skills and time to expand their work, which will also help the country with talent deficit. He has strongly recommended companies to embrace this change and not to suppress talent & the very intention to innovate.
Satya Nadella, the CEO of Micrsoft, went one step further and coined a new term "Productivity Paranoia", which is companies feeling their employees are not being their productive best, leading to unwelcome activities such as spying on the employees. Microsoft firmly believes that employee surveillance is just wrong and in today's hybrid work models, to bridge the gap between what employers and employees want is of utmost importance. Employers should in fact be more concerned about employee burn-out as worktime and 'other' time have completely blurred following the imposed WFH culture due to the pandemic.
It is my opinion that people must have the freedom to work on what they want in their own time (i.e. time not paid for by an employer). Most companies do have 'Non-disclosure' agreements (NDAs) and ‘Non-compete’ clauses (NCCs) in work contracts which employees commit to, which should cover any ethical concerns. Employees on the other hand could avoid conscientiously working for a direct competitor and should definitely not engage in unethical practices which will only spoil it for everyone as seen in the case of Wipro.
Of concern, however, is in the loose definition of 'competitor'. Big conglomerates could even consider a start-up as competition and thus stop employees from utilising their private time to work pretty much anywhere within a sector which would otherwise benefit from access to their skills. This could be the primary reason for employees to leave other work undisclosed.
It should be deemed unethical for companies to have a blanket contract that prohibits employees from taking up any other paid work. Not only is this treatment of employees as bonded labour antediluvian, but it is also plain unconscionable and does not fit in a digitally mobile world, especially post COVID! Employees must stand up for their rights, including that of privacy, and reject such contracts. NDAs and NCCs, on the other hand, need to be rational and clearly articulate a company’s terms, which must be explained to prospective/current employees, giving them a fair chance to accept, come clean, or reject the terms. Such mechanism can help mitigate perceived threats of moonlighting and develop an atmosphere of trust in which employees are self-motivated to ensure ethical conduct and can feel safe disclosing their other commitments.
More than policies and policing, it is a company’s culture which will define whether moonlighting becomes a threat or an engine of positive transformation for both employer and the employee.
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