Moonlighting a phase, similar to China’s in the early 2000s: H&S senior executive

David Hui, Regional Managing Partner, Industrial Practice, APAC and Middle East, H&S

In a developing economy, moonlighting is a phase. According to a senior executive of Heidrick & Struggles (H&S), such trends were also observed in China in the early 2000s. The global firm provides senior-level executive search, culture shaping, and leadership consulting services.

More than 70 percent of Fortune 1000 firms, including those in the healthcare, financial services, technology, industrial, and consumer sectors, are clients of H&S. Its two major sectors are technology and financial services.

Moonlighting has recently become a hot topic in India's information technology (IT) and technology industries. Most recently, Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji revealed that the IT giant discovered 300 of its employees moonlighting for direct competitors over the past few months.

Moonlighting refers to employees having a second job, typically in secret, in addition to their regular employment.

Speaking to Moneycontrol, David Hui, Regional Managing Partner, Industrial Practice, APAC and Middle East, H&S, said, “It’s funny. When I landed in Mumbai and on the way from the airport to the hotel, I was talking to one of my colleagues and saying that being back here reminds me of China in the early 2000s, the same growth, all of that.”

"I recall moonlighting and other such activities being fairly widespread in China in the early 2000s," he continued. "I believe it's just a phase that economies and people have, and part of it is just the cost of living, which makes them (employees) feel like they need to earn more money. Also, there's an appetite to learn more and we see it less obviously on the industrial side, but I'm sure in tech and everywhere else in the world, these are common issues.”

Although commitment and loyalty are the fundamental issues, according to Hui, the technology sector is nevertheless far more prone to dispute, IP theft, and trade secret leaks.

“May be it's an old-school idea of commitment. You work for us, you work with us, and we expect you to not be working for someone else. It's the question of commitment, loyalty, and also conflict. To be honest, I think on the technology industry side, people are much more nervous about conflict, leakage of trade secrets, and things like that. So I think that generally workforces in technology are much more transient than they are in other sectors,” he said.

Return to work

Recently, the world's largest provider of IT services, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), ordered its staff to spend at least three days a week working from the office. In the meantime, other businesses are aiming to go in that direction.

“In some markets people are flooding back to the office. They want that connectivity and want to get together. It's a function of living conditions as well. In Hong Kong, for example, people seem to want to come back to the office, not everyone wants to work at home, because flat sizes are small. So you come to the office and have some space."

``But in other places like in India, in Mumbai, people don't mind staying at home because they want to avoid the commute. So it is very much dependent on the local and individual context. I think the companies just have to accept moonlighting. Not doing so is not practical,” he said.