Infosys runs 'Accelerate' to avert moonlighting, says it supports learning

Infosys supports 'gig work' for employees but is against dual employment, has fired people who were moonlighting, CEO Salil Parekh said in a media interaction on Thursday

As moonlighting continues to be a buzzword in the IT sector, Infosys Limited, India's second-largest IT services company, has weighed in on the issues and confirmed that it had to let go of some of its employees because of dual employment. 

However, the company has established that it supports learning and "gig work" for its employees.

To encourage its employees to learn and engage in work beyond the ambit of their regular job, the company has been running a platform called "Accelerate".

While explaining the company's stance on the concept of 'dual employment' and 'gig opportunities' during the Q2 earnings briefing on Thursday, Infosys CEO Salil Parekh said, "We have been making sure that we have real attention to learning opportunities for our employees within the company. In general, we have always encouraged our employees to have that sort of mindset. In fact, within the company, we have set up, over the last several years, a platform called 'accelerate' through which employees can look at what we internally called 'gig work'- different projects outside of their main work."

He further informed that every year, on average, over 4,000 people apply on the "Accelerate" platform, and about 600 are selected. Explaining further about Infosys' policy on gig opportunities outside the company, the CEO said, "For gig opportunities in the external environment, we support the aspirations of our employees to learn beyond their work. We will support them in working on certain gig projects after the prior approval of their managers. We are also developing more comprehensive policies for that while ensuring contractual and confidentiality commitments are fully respected. However, to be clear, we do not support dual employment."

"If it is found that an employee is doing blatant work in two specific companies, where there are confidentiality issues, we have let go of them," CEO Parekh said.

According to sources privy to the programme, Accelerate projects are small tasks posted by managers on the platform which can be taken up by employees who want to utilise their free time. Human Resources teams also conduct events to make employees aware of the platform.

What is moonlighting?

Moonlighting is a situation where the employees are engaged in additional jobs outside their regular employment without the knowledge of the primary employer. Many companies, including Infosys, have opposed the practice and fired the moonlighters claiming the threat of confidentiality and adverse impact on productivity.