Is Moonlighting Right or Wrong? A Debate

Ram Girdhar

Asst. Professor

Faculty of Commerce and Management

Kalinga University, Raipur C.G.

Recently the issue of moonlighting raised the concern of all big tech companies in India when Wipro has driven out its 300 employees for moonlighting. Moonlighting means working with other competitors or companies at the same time doing regular full-time job. It could be in form of extra assignment or extra work after office hour but this practice has been opposed by all the big companies because it leads to lethargic work on actual work place, overburden, absenteeism of employees and other work-related problems and it is also unethical. Moonlighting increased in recent years because of covid 19 norms and work from home culture especially in IT sector.

Some of the CEO differ to this opposition saying that if employees can earn extra money after the working hour it is fair and no need to worry about. They also see the other side of coin saying that if employee is earning extra income his or her commitment to company increases because they do not want to switch to other companies due to favourable situation of earning extra income in same company.

Although it would be too early to comment on this topic because of its recent emergence but companies are changing their policies to adjust this phenomenon and it will be no longer remain an issue to the companies in India.