Others, including top executives at staffing firms, are of the view that authorising employees to work for non-competing establishments—with prior approval — may do little to enthuse IT workers and may instead lead to managerial disruption. It may not deliver huge benefits to attrition-ridden companies as only a very small percentage of the workforce is likely to opt for such a scheme, they noted.
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IT firms reach out for legal help to address moonlighting among staff
Moonlighting – taking up an additional job in addition to primary employment in order to supplement income — has emerged as a hot button issue in the industry, which employs over 5 million people directly. It is stoking sharp divisions in opinion on the efficacy of companies authorising gig work.
‘Only a Fraction of the Workforce’
Top firms, including Wipro that sacked about 300 employees found working with multiple firms, have been vocal in their stance against moonlighting. Infosys had also let go of people, the management said during its second quarter earnings without specifying an exact number.
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“These policies (allowing gig work with prior approval) are sensible and empowering, and protect the interests of the employees. All companies should come forward and open up to such progressive policies,” said TV Mohandas Pai, former CFO and board member at Infosys and founder of Aarin Capital. “We can wallow in imaginary fear thinking about the imaginary issues,” he added.
Infosys, India’s second largest software exporter, said last week that it
would permit “gig work with prior approval”, while adding that “care needs to be taken to ensure that these projects comply with the company’s policy for gig work and do not breach client contracts or impact the employee’s ability to be effective in their full time job with Infosys.”
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“I don’t think the (external IT gig) policies will bring any major shifts. IT gigs have always been only a fraction of the workforce. It will never cannibalise or transform into a big chunk of the workforce,” said Guruprasad Srinivasan, ED & CEO of staffing firm Quess Corp.
“Though such policies will formalise IT gig employment, it (takers) will not exceed more than 5%. There will be no takers in large numbers because not everyone wants to work 16 hours a day,” he added, while noting that “scientifically, humans can concentrate only around 48 hours/week for a quality outcome.”
Further, IT workers would prefer to leverage their specialist skills while seeking gig work, staffing firms that supply talent to IT companies said. Kamal Karanth, cofounder of specialist staffing firm Xpheno said that “while other companies may follow suit, they may not see any traction among employees.”
“Techies may prefer side gigs on skills they specialise in, which is primarily coding, and that’s where they can make additional competitive income,” he added.
Moreover, the onus of deciding which employee is permitted to take up gig work will rest with line managers. “This policy will also give too much discretion to the line manager. The managerial staff will have a problem choosing whom to allow for side gigs–whether it’s their racehorses or laggards without impacting their productivity levels,” XPheno’s Karanth said.
“If the side gigs take off, the managers will be burdened with additional management stress as they are already overloaded with attrition, hiring and upskilling issues in their teams,” he added.
Indian IT companies have been struggling with attrition issues with the ratio rising to nearly 30% over the past few quarters. Employees, mainly with up to four years of experience have cashed in on demand-supply mismatch in the industry by switching jobs and demanding steep hikes.
Infosys CEO Salil Parekh in a post-earnings conference had said that it does not support dual employment. “We have found in the past 12 months of the employees who are doing blatant work in two different companies where and there’s confidentiality issues, we have let go of them,” added Salil Parekh in the earnings briefing.
The Bengaluru-based company also said that it has an internal platform called Accelerate where employees can opt for additional gigs in other projects within Infosys apart from their main projects. The platform receives 4,000 applications every quarter and around 600 get approved.
Industry analysts estimate that the quantum of the IT gig workforce may not exceed more than 5% even if company-wide policies permitting it are put in place.
To be sure, several employees themselves are not keen on adopting such policies as they fear it could lead to unnecessary issues with their managers.
“Not sure if managers will approve us for such policies when getting approvals for leaves itself is difficult,” said an employee at a US-based IT firm that has a large employee base in India.
“IT employees cannot be treated as bonded labourers…employees have a contract to work with Infosys for nine hours only. What the employees do outside working hours is their prerogative,” said the spokesperson of IT Union Nascent IT Employees Senate (NITES) in a statement.
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