Moonlighting: Why service companies are missing the wood for the trees

Both by sacking employees for moonlighting and insisting they turn up to the office daily, employers disregard both productivity and employee morale

Many Indian IT companies have been getting their knickers in a twist over moonlighting — a stupid term attributing criminality — by their employees. Moonlighting means having a second casual employment after formal office hours.

These companies have also been sacking employees and are now forcing them to come to the office daily. Both these approaches are wrong because employers are thereby disregarding both productivity and employee morale.

They insist on buying their employees’ time, with scant attention to their output levels and the resources consumed to produce it.

I have been arguing for over three decades now that the