Though moonlighting is one of the hottest topics in discussion among all the  hierarchies in the business world, some companies don’t seem to be comfortable with allowing employees to adopt this theory in reality. 

Indian tech giant Infosys announced that employees who will be caught with this practice may be terminated, echoing Wipro chairman Rishad Premji who had termed the practice as ‘cheating’.

The Infosys employees recently received an HR mail that read, “Remember - NO TWO-TIMING - NO MOONLIGHTING (sic).” The mail further added that the company “strictly discourages dual employment” and described the process of moonlighting as a practice of having a second job during free hours.

According to a report published by Moneycontrol, it added that the shift to remote work has seen an uptick in moonlighting. The email said it has become easier, especially for IT employees, to hold a second job without their primary employer knowing. “This can pose serious challenges to our business such as impact on productivity, job performance, risk of data and confidential information leakage, etc," it read.

Earlier, in an interaction with People Matters, Manish Trehan – Partner, CoHire shared, “It's a matter of perspective really. Traditional thinking would look at this as a matter of integrity especially if the employee is falling behind in productivity, results etc.,” with People Matters. 

During that interaction, he suggested a few ways for orgnisations to benefit from this concept

• Greater learning & skill enhancement when employees take up extra projects, to better utilize their time.
• Greater productivity of the employee's time allows for better earnings for the employee and therefore higher engagement within the existing company which allows ethical moonlighting.
• Finally, in the long run the industry sees cost benefits as costs of employee work are shared whereas at an individual level earnings rise, a win-win situation for all.