Tech major Wipro has again defended its policies against "moonlighting" as it faces criticism, and theories float around, over its firing of 300 employees for working for other companies simultaneously. Chief executive Thierry Delaporte on Wednesday did say that some "side jobs" are fine, but working for a competitor is a "question of ethics".
Company boss Rishad Premji has already called it "cheating, plain and simple".
"Our contracts stipulate not taking up a side job with a competitor. It is not a question of legal (propriety); it is a question of ethics," CEO Delaporte said, when asked if moonlighting, particularly in work-from-home settings, could be legal. He was speaking at a press conference about the quarterly earnings of Wipro, which saw a 9.3 per cent drop in net profit, in which rising staff expenses were a factor.
"So hear me, I am not talking about things illegal. I am not talking about side jobs. I am really talking about being in an obvious situation of conflict of interest. I think that our employees understand that," he added, as per a report by news agency PTI.
Mindful that many companies, such as Tech Mahindra, don't agree with a watertight no-no, he added: "If others have no problem, we respect that. But also we are not doing anything new or different."
Headquartered in Bengaluru, Wipro hired 14,000 freshers in the April-September period, and its total headcount stood at just shy of 2.6 lakh.
It went in for the firings even though attrition rates — number of employees leaving — is a major bug in the IT industry's success code. Wipro's attrition rate was 23 per cent in the September quarter, marginally down from 23.3. It announced that it will pay out 100 per cent of Variable Pay, which is usually linked to company and individual performance, to 85 per cent of the staff.
"During this quarter, we followed a strategy focusing on hiring freshers, and we will continue to follow this strategy," Mr Delaporte said. The company also gave out salary hikes and promoted 10,000 employees during the quarter, he announced.
Yet, campus hires have been facing delays in onboarding at Wipro, as in other IT companies.
On moonlighting, though, it has found support from fellow homegrown tech giants like TCS and Infosys, besides the multinational IBM.
Amid this ongoing debate, a theory went viral on Twitter yesterday that the government's Provident Fund system, which is linked to identity documents such as Aadhaar, may have played a role in Wipro finding out about the moonlighters. The company has not said anything on that, nor have the PF authorities.
