‘Cheating’, ‘Two-Timing’ and other colourful words aside, some in the industry have taken serious offence to the idea of their employees having a side gig. Moonlighting has existed for a long time and it has come into the limelight because employees overdid it by joining multiple companies at the same time during the pandemic. This Times of India article brought it to light where it showed employees working in 7 companies. It became a virus.
Rishad Premji made headlines with 'Moonlighting is Cheating' tweet. They in fact went on to fire 300 employees for moonlighting. Happiest Minds, Infosys, Wipro and many other companies fired employees for moonlighting. Kerala based Gtech IT association recently went on to say Moonlighting cannot be allowed.
1. It is a hot topic on LinkedIn with people taking the employee's side with arguments like:
- Employees are not paid enough
- Employees are bored and not engaged properly and hence they are moonlighting
- Employees should be allowed to pursue their passion.
- Employee’s time is theirs and that companies should not interfere with what they do beyond working hours.
- Every entrepreneur did moonlighting at one point before getting into their own company full time.
- Board of Directors, Managing Directors and top management moonlight in different companies.
- Industry association engagement is also moonlighting.
All these arguments sound valid, if you see it from just that single view point. It would seem that companies should allow all to moonlight. Should they?l
2. The company's view points were never spoken about openly but let's see what their view points can be:
- Deloitte report says India looses $15 Billion due to burnout. What are companies giving weekends or evening off for? Is it not to relax, rejuvenate, spend time with family and friends? If employees decides to moonlight, how will they be productive? Won't it cause burnout?
- During COVID, people were talking about 4 day week days and more time with family. If moonlighting is allowed, doesn't this go contrary to why people wanted 4 day weekdays for?
- What if a company's intellectual property is stolen in the name of moonlighting?
- Companies have 'Intellectual Property Assignment' clauses in contract when working for companies. What is the sanctity of that clause?
- There are many benefits and coverages paid by the company and how should that expense be treated? What if the employee falls sick moonlighting but makes a claim in the day-job company and their premiums or expenses go up?
- Why does the person take 'full time employment' if the employee actually wants to be gig worker? Why should the company incur PF, ESI etc as an expense? Can the company decide to stop payment during the time the employee falls sick or maybe when there is not enough work? Why should the company take the burden of paying full salary during COVID as an example, be supportive, take care of wellbeing etc?
- Why should the employee come under the protection of Labor Laws if they want to moonlight?
- People have invested money and maybe even their life savings in case of an entrepreneur, many employees' livelihood depends on this living thing called 'Company'. It may not have a human face to it but many lives depend on it. How does it mitigate the risk due to moonlighting? People always empathize with the employee but one doesn't hear any word of empathy for the entrepreneur or business owner. Even if it is the employee's fault only the business owner will get blamed as it is presumed that they have deep pockets. Remember 90% of companies are SMEs.
When you read the company's view points, all of a sudden you start seeing the gray area. The answer to moonlighting is not black and white but many shades of gray. So how should companies address the moonlighting issue?
Some companies are taking a stand by creating policies to legitimize moonlighting. Swiggy is the most recent example of this with their policy for moonlighting.
3.Here are some Best Practice tips to mitigate moonlighting:
- Ask employees to take permission for moonlighting with clear demarcation on what is allowed and what is not allowed. Provide a software driven process if needed to make it easier to seek approval and have an appeal process should there be a difference of opinion with the manager.
- Let your employees know that their 'unrelated' passion is all theirs to do without approval and will not be considered moonlighting example working full time in software and teaching yoga as an example.
- Provide an option to make an extra buck by working within your own organization, maybe on a different project ideally so as to kill any burnout/boredom/misuse.
- Educate employees on what is intellectual property theft and what will be construed as misuse.
- Make sure employees are satisfied with their work and manager. Perform happiness surveys and create an open culture.
- Educate employees on what you consider 'greed' vs 'appropriate compensation'. Remember the Indian population has grown up paying bribes, capitation fees and taking short cuts to maintain a lifestyle beyond their means/needs/capabilities. Greed is now running in their blood and peer pressure only adds to this problem.
- Reward trustworthy employees more than high performer with low trustworthiness. A survey of US Navy Seals shows that the organization is better off with medium performers with high trust than with high performers with low trust.
- Companies should also consider TRST Score to mitigate issues arising out of moonlighting.
While this debate continues employees must remember to take responsibility for their actions. When they commit time and energy to a full-time opportunity the expectation is that the time outside of their work is used to create the ‘Worklife Balance’ we all crave so much. If one is to moonlight their way into burnout then the employer is not to be blamed!