Is Moonlighting accepted norm in the corporate world? View from Assam

Guwahati: Amid the growing debate on moonlighting, Business North East spoke to many entrepreneur and employees across Assam on their view on the issue.

Moonlighting means the practice of having a second job or taking assignments from different sources apart from a full time job of the present organisation.

While speaking to BNE, many employees who are working with big MNCs said that they are employed full time and hold a primary job. But they are also working on other freelance projects.

Arnab Barman, who is the founder of DSRL , a robotics and automation startup from Assam said “ if I have employed someone full time I will not allow that person to work with a similar organisation since many confidential things can be leaked.”

Abanita Borpatra Gohain who is presently the admin at Novo Computing which is a reputed IT solution firm said that employees sign NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements) before joining however by any chance if we become aware about the violation we will definitely issue a warning. But if the employee is holding a secondary job with a similar company or our competitor, we will definitely fire them.

“I totally understand that nowadays people do hold secondary jobs but if that employee is holding a secondary job in a company which does not have a link with influencer marketing like ‘Madify’, we don't have any problems and I don't think there is any need for exchange of dialogues. But if that employee is holding his or her secondary job in a competitive company of Madify then we should definitely sit and talk because there might be a tendency of exchanging data of companies'' said Mafuz A Laskar who is the founder of Madify which is the first influencer marketing platform of North East.

However on the other hand the employees or the people who are holding secondary jobs have different opinions. Most of the fresh graduates of Assam who are placed in respectable MNCs of India are of the opinion that they should be given multiple opportunities for exposure and to showcase their skills.

While most of the fresh graduates who just got placed do have a secondary source of income however they hesitate to term it as ‘moonlighting’.
According to them they are freelancing which also means the same to work for different organizations.

But technically in freelancing a person does not hold permanent jobs and works in different projects at the same time. But the scenario is different when you are employed full time in a reputed company because every company has their own protocols and certain NDAs are meant to be maintained.

Meanwhile, a new report has revealed that 43 percent of employees in the Indian IT sector find moonlighting favourable.

The top reasons why employees work outside their jobs are to safeguard against job loss and supplement their incomes.
The top reasons why employees work outside their jobs are to safeguard against job loss and supplement their incomes.

However, employers have a different view of this tendency as 31 percent believe that employees moonlight because they are not adequately engaged in their work and 23 percent believe that employees have ample time on hand for a second job, according to the findings from quarterly hiring tracker by job platform Indeed.

Overall, the report showed that less than one out of five employees (19 percent) surveyed want to moonlight in India, with a large majority of employees (81 percent) saying they do not wish to take up another job alongside the one they currently work in, citing it as unethical.

In other sectors like healthcare and pharmaceutical (70 percent of employees), FMCG (71 percent) and manufacturing (79 percent) echo similar beliefs about moonlighting.

Similarly, quiet quitting is another trend that has arisen due to employee stress and burnout.

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