ReportWire

Tag: rishad premji

  • ‘Moonlighting unacceptable’: After Wipro, Happiest Minds fires employees for dual jobs

    ‘Moonlighting unacceptable’: After Wipro, Happiest Minds fires employees for dual jobs

    [ad_1]

    After Wipro, IT company Happiest Minds has fired employees for moonlighting. The company said moonlighting is unacceptable as it amounts to a violation of the job contract. Moonlighting is a term to describe employees who while working for one company take up a second job. Many IT firms including Wipro and IBM have called it ‘illegal’ and ‘unethical’. In fact, it was Wipro chairman Rishad Premji who triggered the whole debate by calling it “cheating – plain and simple”.   

    Happiest Minds’ Executive Vice Chairman Joseph Anantharaju told news agency PTI that his firm has been quite clear with its people that dual job is something that the company will not accept. “…because when you sign a contract or employment offer, you are agreeing to work only for that company,” he said. 

    Anantharaju said moonlighting raises risks and questions around security, as well as the commitment of workers in devoting their time and attention to end customers and delivery outcomes. He said his firm had found instances of employees involved in moonlighting and they were fired immediately because it was a message the management wanted to drive across the company. 

    “Even if it is a few hours somewhere… because there is no way of really ascertaining that. So we have done that…we are clear, you can’t be moonlighting. If you want to do some voluntary activities in unrelated areas…maybe wish to go teach in a school over the weekend that is different. But for us you have to have all of your time dedicated to Happiest Minds and working out here,” he said. 

    The top leadership of information technology firms is currently divided with some openly against the trend while some have lenient views considering the rising cost of living and exposure the employees get while working on other assignments.

    In a tweet in August, Wipro’s Rishad Premji said: “There is a lot of chatter about people moonlighting in the tech industry. This is cheating – plain and simple.” Weeks after this tweet, Premji informed that his company had fired 300 employees found to be moonlighting. 

    Backing him, RPG Group’s Harsh Goenka said Wipro deals with Fortune 500 clients for whom data secrecy is sacrosanct.  “If the customer finds even a remote chance of data compromise, it will not be tolerated,” he said. 

    Infosys, the country’s second-largest IT firm, too had joined the league warning its employees against two-timing and moonlighting. However, earlier this month, it took a U-turn and allowed its employees to take gig work with prior consent from managers and HR.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • ‘Fired senior employee in 10 minutes’: Wipro’s Rishad Premji makes yet another disclosure

    ‘Fired senior employee in 10 minutes’: Wipro’s Rishad Premji makes yet another disclosure

    [ad_1]

    A month after disclosing that Wipro had fired 300 employees for moonlighting, its chairman Rishad Premji has informed that his company fired a senior employee in flat 10 minutes for a ‘huge integrity violation’. The employee was one of the top 20 leaders at Wipro. Speaking at the Nasscom Product Conclave in Bengaluru on Wednesday, Premji said that it was an important role that this person played for the organisation “but when the times are tough, and you have to make those tough calls…we made that decision in 10 minutes”.

    The chairman of the fourth largest IT firm in the country, however, did not disclose the nature of the violation by the person. He said Wipro values integrity and that the policy on this is black and white for any kind of violation or harassment. “There is a zero-one policy for any form of integrity violation, any form of harassment. You can be me in the company, and I won’t have a job if I violate one of those two,” he said.

    “There is a zero-one policy for any form of integrity violation, any form of harassment. You can be me in the company, and I won’t have a job if I violate one of those two,” Premji said.

    Premji also recalled an incident when a senior person was fired six-seven years ago for getting someone else to tag in and out for him. He said Wipro found that out and that person got fired effective immediately. This person, the chairman said, was well connected and reached out through every form of medium to put a lot of pressure on the organisation to give him a clean, relieving certificate. “We said we are black and white about this,” he said.

    On 21 September, Premji while speaking at an event said that Wipro had sacked 300 employees who were found to be moonlighting. He said these employees who worked with the company were also found to be working for one of its competitors at the same time. Premji said this was “a complete violation of integrity in its deepest form”.

    “The reality is that there are people today working for Wipro and working directly for one of our competitors and we have actually discovered 300 people in the last few months who are doing exactly that,” he said.

    Premji has taken a very tough stand on moonlighting, a term to describe employees who take up other assignments from a second company while already working for one. “There is a lot of chatter about people moonlighting in the tech industry. This is cheating – plain and simple,” he had said in a tweet in August. 

    [ad_2]

    Source link