Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) said on October 10 that moonlighting was an ethical issue and was against the company’s core values as well as culture but, so far, no action has been taken against employees working a side job.
Talking to media after sharing a healthy set of numbers for the September quarter, Chief Human Resources Officer Milind Lakkad said TCS’s position on moonlighting was communicated to employees. No action has been taken so far against someone, he said.
It was codified in the company’s employment contract that employees weren’t allowed to work for any other organisation, Chief Executive Officer Rajesh Gopinathan said.
IT professionals taking up a second job, thought to be made possible due to work from home, has polarised opinion, with most companies saying it was unacceptable.
TCS’ peers Infosys and Wipro have hit out against the practice. Infosys sent a warning email to employees, while Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji has said the company let go of 300 people working for competitors.
TCS in September directed employees to work from its offices for at least three days a week and said adherence to the company’s roster was mandatory.
Lakkad said all the company’s seniors were coming to office.
“The remaining staff we are rostering all of them, across projects. One-third of them are coming to office at least twice a week and the numbers will increase. There is excitement about coming to work,” he said.
In an email, the company told employees to return to office, warning that noncompliance would be taken seriously.
Also read: TCS adds 20,000 freshers in Q2FY23, says all job offers honoured
“Senior leaders of TCS have been working from TCS offices for a while now and our customers are also visiting TCS offices… Your respective managers will now roster you to work from the TCS office for at least 3 days in a week,” it read.
A TCS spokesperson earlier told Moneycontrol that all employees were asked to return to their base locations where they were operating before the coronavirus pandemic.
“Those employees who have sought and got transfers will operate from the changed locations,” the spokesperson said.
During the last quarter’s results, TCS had said 20 percent of the staff was working out of its offices.
Also read: Rajeev Chandrasekhar backs moonlighting, says companies should not put lid on employee dreams
Calling employees back to the office also comes at a time when TCS announced its 25/25 model, under which no more than 25 percent of its employees would be required to work out of its offices at any given time and no more than 25 percent of their time would be spent at the office.
While the decision to call employees back to office appears to run contrary to the 25/25 model, the company's leadership previously said the plan was to get employees back to work at regular levels, or at least to 80 percent, before implementing a structured hybrid model.
Kicking off the earnings season for the information technology sector, the country's largest IT services provider reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 10,465 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2022, registering an 8.41 percent year-on-year (YoY) growth from Rs 9,653 crore logged in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.
Sequentially, the profit rose 9.93 percent. TCS said the revenue from operations grew by 18.01 percent YoY to Rs 55,309 crore compared to Rs 46,867 crore in the same quarter last year. Sequentially, revenue grew 4.83 percent.
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