Gone in 10 minutes: Rishad Premji underlines Wipro’s ‘black and white’ approach to ethics violations

Speaking at the Nasscom Product Conclave – 2022, Premji stressed the importance of integrity.

Wipro was in the news last month for firing 300 employees who were moonlighting. It isn’t clear if the executive Premji was referring to was fired for moonlighting or for some other reason.

“You take the tough calls when things are not easy. There was a very senior person…we let a top-20 person in the organisation go because there was a huge integrity violation. We made that decision in 10 minutes,” Premji said.

Moonlighting became a hotly debated issue within the IT industry after the Wipro firings.

In an interview with ET, N Ganapathy Subramaniam, COO of TCS, India’s largest IT services firm, said moonlighting was unethical and unacceptable and that the whole industry could fall apart because of it.

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His sentiments were echoed by Infosys CEO Salil Parekh, who spoke out against moonlighting and said he did not support dual employment.

Last month, ET reported that IT companies were reaching out for legal help to curb moonlighting by redrafting current employee contracts.

Addressing the event, Premji said that 6-7 years earlier, the company had fired another senior executive for asking an employee to mark his attendance.

“This person was well connected and reached out through every medium to put a lot of pressure on the organisation to give him a clean relieving certificate. And, we said, ‘We are black and white about this,’” Premji said.

Premji has been outspoken against moonlighting. In an August 2022 tweet, he called it ‘cheating — plain and simple’.

Advice for startups

The Wipro chairman also advised startups to focus on choosing the right people and build sustainable businesses instead of running after valuations.

“There is an obsession today on unicorn status and how much you’re valued at… the journey to build sustainable businesses is long, it’s complex, it’s slow at times. If your journey is to make money quickly, the kind of organisation you build will be very different from an organisation that you want to last,” Premji said.