Moonlighting Is Plain And Simple Cheating, Says Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji

Rishad Premji, chairman of Wipro, shared his views about the most discussed tech trend, the moonlighting policy, in his Twitter handle. He mentioned that this practice is cheating.

Rishad Premji Twitter handle

He tweeted, "There is a lot of chatter about people moonlighting in the tech industry. This is cheating, plain and simple."

As per reports, Premji's statement comes after Wipro cancelled variable pay of its mid and senior-level executives for the June quarter. The company, reportedly, sent an email to its employees notifying the same, in which it is stated that fresher and junior-level staff will get variable pay after 30 per cent cut.

Recently, food delivery platform Swiggy announced moonlighting policy for its employees. The policy allows the employees to take up an alternative job beside their primary work at Swiggy. The policy is available to all full-time employees of Bundl Technologies, the parent company of Swiggy, including subsidiaries, affiliates and group companies.

In India, usually most companies won't allow the practice of such policy and strictly restrict employees from taking a second job.

Swiggy's human resources (HR) head, Girish Menon, expressed his disagreement with Premji's statement. Menon, in a podcast episode of ET's Morning Brief, has said that, "Moonlighting is the future of work. And that is what Swiggy is attempting to do. Moonlighting came from what we believe will be the future of work, and less about research or data. People with skills will have opportunities to do side gigs, or what they call the side hustle. So why not normalize it."

While commenting on the moonlight policy, Prerna Chauhan, AGM HR of Media Mantra expressed her viewpoint with Entrepreneur India that, "As the company's assistant general manager, I believe this is not a good practice by any employee because it has a huge risk of jeopardizing that person's career. This is unethical in my opinion because employees could utilize the tools and software the company provides for their own purpose, which is morally wrong ad Indian law only allows you to have one work contract."