side hustle

We have a pretty clear position at Wipro that we are taking pride in the fact that we are keeping commitment with our employee and expect the same from them, said the Wipro Chief

Wipro CEO Thierry Delaporte said on Wednesday that the company was comfortable with the idea of side jobs but highlighted the fact that working for a competitor is definitely a ‘question of ethics’.

The statement from Delaporte came at the Wipro Q2 FY23 earnings press conference. The Wipro chief also said that employees working for Wipro are not expected to dedicate their entire time to the company but also “keep time for themselves and for families”.

The topic of moonlighting came to the fore as a concern last month when Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji spoke out against employees secretly working for rival companies and called the practice ‘cheating’. Weeks later the company fired about 300 employees for moonlighting.

At the press conference, the Wipro CEO said, “We have a pretty clear position at Wipro that we are taking pride in the fact that we are keeping commitment with our employee and expect the same from them.”

Indian IT industry is seeing record-setting attrition rates currently as companies feel margin pressure and costs mount. For the Q2 FY23, Wipro reported a marginal decrease in attrition rate but has said that it will hand out 100 per cent variable pay 85 per cent of its employees.

“[Moonlighting is a concern] in particular, when people are going for another job that is a conflict of interest”, Delaporte emphasised. He said that if other companies have no problem with Moonlighting, Wipro respects it.

Delaporte on the rumors of revocation of offer letters given to new joiners said that the company will respect its commitment.

Wipro has onboarded 14,000 freshers in the first six months of fiscal 2022, with a net increase in headcount of 605 for the quarter that ended September. The total headcount at the end of the quarter stood at 2,59,179.

IT giant Wipro on Wednesday released its financial figures for the quarter ended 30 September, 2022 and reported a 9.3 per cent year-on-year (YoY) decline in its profit after tax (PAT) at Rs 2,659 crore. However its PAT grew 3.72 per cent sequentially from Rs 2563.6 crore reported in the June quarter. Its revenue jumped by 14.6 per cent YoY to Rs 22,540 crore.

Meanwhile at the HCLTech Q2 FY23 earnings press conference, the company’s Chief People Officer Ramachandran Sundararajan said that dual employment while working for the company is not allowed. But he also added that the company has not seen moonlighting come up as a big problem within HCLTech. 

“We don’t have that as big problem that we have too many people indulging in dual employment. It is not a big problem. We have had one or two stray instances,” he said.