Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal’s company launches moonlighting policy, allows employees to take up second gigs

Start-up scale-up platform xto10x, co-founded by Flipkart’s co-founder Binny Bansal, has introduced a policy around moonlighting which allows its employees to undertake other professional pursuits while working full-time. 

Moonlighting is a term to describe an act - by employees - of taking up part-time assignments from the second company while already working for one on its payroll. 

The company said its employees are encouraged to explore and experiment with different opportunities to grow professionally and personally. While there are no approvals required for employees to take up outside projects, the company said employees are required to disclose their terms of engagement in the spirit of transparency. Team members can seek guidance from their functional leaders when in doubt if the engagement leads to a conflict of interest.  

Founded by Bansal along with former Flipkart executives Saikiran Krishnamurthy and Neeraj Aggarwal in 2018, the company works with start-ups across verticals to help them scale and offers them a range of proprietary product solutions. 

 “Trust is a foundation of our team's success. Our belief is that people should be able to pursue their passions alongside their full-time jobs since this can aid them in excelling at the company as well. As an employee-centric organization, we believe in creating a work environment where employees can thrive,” Neeraj Aggarwal, co-founder and COO, said. 

The Bengaluru-based company said it believes team members are professionals who can make decisions responsibly and therefore, wouldn’t be establishing a central committee to monitor and approve these pursuits. 

“As a team, we trust our members to make the right decision about what engagements to take on and to disclose if they're getting paid for them. They do not have to obtain approval for pro bono or paid work as long as it does not harm xto10x interests,” he added. 

Some companies like online food ordering and delivery platform Swiggy allow their employees to take up jobs outside before or after office hours and on weekends that don’t not impact their businesses. 

However, IT companies like Wipro, Infosys, and IBM have taken a position against dual jobs. The debate gained momentum when Wipro chief Rishad Premji in a tweet on August 20 said there was a lot of chatter about people moonlighting in the tech industry. "This is cheating - plain and simple," he said. 

After him, many top executives echoed his views and said if an employee signs a contract, he or she should not violate it and that the person should work for the company only. 

Also read: Moonlighting debate reaches Parliament; govt looks for answers in Industrial Disputes Act, 1947

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