Moonlighting- Is it an employee’s right or is it all wrong?

There has been a fierce debate in the recent past about “Moonlighting” or in other words, taking up another gig apart from your main job, sometimes without the knowledge of your employer. There are many strong opinions and thoughts regarding the topic so let us try to go through them one by one. 

Moonlighting of all forms is cheating! 

It does not matter if you have a side hustle or another part time job, it doesn’t matter if you work as a consultant in the morning and as a barista in Starbucks in the evening (no competing interest), according to some people moonlighting will always be wrong. The Chairman of Wipro Rishad Premji expressed this on twitter: “There is a lot of chatter about people moonlighting in the tech industry.  This is cheating – plain and simple.” New age firms like Swiggy though, seem to be more on board with their employees pursuing side-hustles. 

A major argument against this line of reasoning is from those who believe that an employee’s time outside does not belong to the employer and that  employees  can choose whatever they want to do in that time.  Many have pointed out that IT salaries in India have had a sluggish growth, despite many companies making good profits during the pandemic. Further in 2020, economist Nouriel Roubini warned how increasing corporate profits on the back of wage squeezing as seen in that quarter, would exacerbate the income inequality in India. With concerns over the rising cost of living looming large, is it fair for companies to ban moonlighting altogether? Is a company entitled to control what an employee does outside working hours? 

Moonlighting shows that an employee is not committed to the company 

“Devotion to work” or “Loyalty to one’s company” is often held in great regard in our society. So, someone choosing to do a side gig, doesn’t seem right. This is tied to the belief that everyone at work is “family” and the expectation that an employee should be willing to do anything for the firm. 

A person can be a competent employee, and do a good job without being head over heels in love with their work. Jobs at the end of the day, are just that- a mechanism for us to survive in the world. While it is amazing when someone does work that they love, people who work together aren’t ‘family’.  What we must ensure in a workplace is not that it should be like a “family” but that people are treated with respect and fairness. 

What do you think? Is moonlighting wrong on principle, because it shows that people aren’t committed to their company? Or, is it fine for a person to have a side hustle if it doesn’t affect their job performance? 

The case of competing interests 

The strongest case against moonlighting is that of competing interest! Imagine a person working as a strategist for a fast food chain as their day job and has a course on how to create a successful food business. Is that okay? If a person works in customer service for Wipro and as a delivery agent for Swiggy, is that okay? Did your answers for these two scenarios differ?

One major opposition to moonlighting as a concept is that it is very likely that a person’s different jobs might be from the same industry. Salil Parekh, recently clarified Infosys’ stance on moonlighting by saying that he doesn’t support dual employment that is in conflict with a person’s work at Infosys and that they have fired many employees over the past year due to this. He also insisted that they were developing ways in which an employee could take up gig work in the future while respecting confidentiality agreements. 

Side-hustles: A gendered perspective: 

While we try to understand the ethics of moonlighting, it is also important to look at it through the lens of gender. There is a paucity of India specific data, but previous research has found that men and women side-hustle for different reasons. More women do it more out of financial necessity than men and more men take them up as passion projects than women! On average, men seem to have more side-hustles and tend to earn more from it. There is little understanding of what side-hustles men and women do in India and whether they are different from each other. The gender pay gap in India is one of the widest and has a correlation with the number of women enrolled in STEM. The nature of jobs that women and men do in the country is different and the same could extend to side-hustles. As companies move forward to regulate moonlighting, it would be great if we try to understand how gender plays into the picture.

The way forward: 

Moonlighting seems to be here to stay, and has been further bolstered after the pandemic struck. On the other hand, it is fair for companies to be worried about competing interests. Some have gone as far as to say that the fact that many employees keep moonlighting a secret shows that they know there is something icky about it. But one could also argue that employees might need money from both jobs but since moonlighting isn’t accepted, they lie to safeguard themselves. What’s the solution? As cliché as it sounds, regulation will make all the difference. 

When Mr. Parekh talks about conflict with work, what exactly does he mean by it? If a person working in digital marketing has a YouTube channel where they talk about digital marketing, is that wrong? Is there a difference between a ‘side hustle’ and having a ‘side job’? Should we mandate the amount of hours that employees can spend on these jobs? Will these regulations affect men and women differently? Our definition of work keeps changing everyday, work culture is ever shifting and each new shift has trials and tribulations that come with it! I’m sure that a resolution can be achieved where both employees and employers are content. We would love to hear your thoughts!

Written by: Gayathri Arvind