Post Covid, various interlinked developments in the tech sector have come to the fore: reluctance of employees to report for work; moonlighting and attrition. Firms have responded with varying mix of carrots and sticks. Luminaries from the tech zone feel that moonlighting has to be embraced as beyond office hours, the employee has the right to carry on any activity.
Where is the customer amidst all this? Right from the late nineties when ISO, QS and several other standards were implemented across organisations, processes were made secure, in order to inspire confidence among customers and clients who value their intellectual property. The anxiety to assure customers on this score has driven service providers and suppliers to establish dedicated plants, facilities and subsidiaries, with tight boundaries and suffocating restrictive conditions. In the tech area, enormous work has been done to restrict database access, mail and Internet facilities to employees based on need. To permit multiple employment in this scenario is to secure the stable and allow the horse to bolt.
Let us examine the premise that working elsewhere beyond normal hours is a sort of entitlement. Should the primary employer tolerate an employee reporting in an exhausted state on account of his or her excessive preoccupation elsewhere? Organisations depend on innovation and exclusivity to survive. Employee’s interaction with competitors will be as objectionable to an organisation as violation of privacy for an individual. If part employment beyond office hours becomes legitimate across all sectors, income tax officers will work as advisors in the evening and pass assessment orders during the day.
The present framework permits organisations to have full time employees and professionals, with different taxation and service conditions wherein professionals work full or part time and can take up outside engagements, with confidentiality and non-competitor clauses built in. Thus, full time employees are dedicated to the organisation and professionals bound by clauses can legitimately work even with competitors. So where exactly is the problem?
Anti-competitive clauses can be circumvented through intermediaries and confidentiality clauses are legally difficult to enforce. Thus, breach of confidentiality is possible among both, employees and professionals, hurting the organisation. In this challenging environment, can firms do anything to retain talent and dissuade rogue actions? Enhance the dignity of employees and bind them strongly to the organisation.
The writer is a retired senior executive