HCLTech joins ranks with TCS, Infosys, Wipro; says it doesn’t approve of moonlighting

Following the footsteps of its peers including Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Wipro and Infosys, HCLTech on October 12 came clear with its stance of moonlighting. While discussing its second quarter results, the IT services major said that it doesn’t approve of this ‘dual employment’ and expects employees to honour their contracts expecting them to maintain exclusivity.

Ram Sundararajan, chief people officer at HCLTech said while addressing the media, “Dual employment while working for HCLTech— we don’t approve of that. Everybody who works for HCLTech is signing up for an employment contract which requires exclusivity. There are requirements around confidentiality, non-solicitation, non-compete etc. all those provisions that are there we expect our employees would honour those.”

“Having said that, if people do have hobbies and preferences they want to pursue in their free time, we leave it to individual choices,” he added.

The company said that it, fortunately, hasn’t had any active cases of moonlighting barring one or two stray instances which is being investigated.

This comes just days after TCS condemned moonlighting as unethical and against the company's values and culture. The management even said that it has "codified" this in its employee contracts, and that they are not permitted to work elsewhere. The company has already communicated its position on moonlighting to its employees, though no action has been taken against anyone so far.

Moonlighting is increasingly becoming a cause of concern for the Indian IT sector, particularly as attrition rates remain high and the business environment remains challenging. With remote work becoming the norm, employees are able to take up a second job during their spare time.

Rishad Premji, the chairman of Wipro, recently said that the company had fired around 300 employees after finding them working for competitors.

Infosys, on the other hand, has already issued a strong warning to its employees via email last month, threatening them with termination if they are found moonlighting.

HCLTech is opting for a hybrid work model just like its peers. The company has already “encouraged” employees to work from office three days a week, but has not made it mandatory.

As per Sundararajan, it is being rolled out in a decentralised way, wherein project managers get to decide who should come in depending on work requirements.

CEO C Vijayakumar emphasised that the hybrid work operating model is here to stay.

“We have reached out to our employees in so many different towns. We went to 20 small locations where we did not have offices earlier. Around 500-1000 people participate during our town halls from those locations,” he said.

TCS and Wipro has already asked employees to mandatorily work from office for three days a week from October onwards.