'Moonlighting is unstoppable': Former HCL CEO backs employees, questions management 

Vineet Nayar, the former CEO of HCL Technologies, has entered the heated debate around moonlighting and questioned the top management of companies saying if their involvement in other companies as board members or as investors in startups amounts to moonlighting.

Nayar, also an author and philanthropist, took to LinkedIn to express his views on the issue of moonlighting - the practice of taking up multiple jobs.

The former CEO questioned top management of companies and wrote, “Is senior management being part of other company boards moonlighting? When they invest their own money in startups and make profits, is that moonlighting? Is their trading in stock markets moonlighting?”

“Why call everything an employee does outside work as moonlighting,” he added.

Also WATCH: Moonlighting: Cheating or Choice?

Nayar also said moonlighting is “unstoppable.” He said, “Today all employees try to engage with the world outside and work in various forms. This is unstoppable.”

He suggested that organisations need to help employees navigate side gigs better to prevent conflict of interest instead of trying to stop them.

“Rather than try and stop them, an attempt must be made by organisations to canalise that trend as has been done with senior management of various companies and allow them to do so, so long as it is not in conflict with the organisation,” Nayar posted.

He also said that this would help in employees being more productive at their day job. He noted, “Organisations must understand that letting employees pursue something that interests them in their spare time, whether being done for money or otherwise, can turn out to be more productive for them.”

Moonlighting in the IT sector has become a heated debate after Wipro chief Rishad Premji took to Twitter to say that the practice is "cheating". Later other industry leaders clarified their position on the same. TCS COO Ganapathy Subramanian called it “an ethical issue”  while IBM India director Sandip Patel called it “ethically wrong.”

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