Salil Parekh, CEO of Infosys, has stated that employees will be allowed to take up non-company employment opportunities with the prior consent of their managers and HR. This is a 180-degree shift from the company’s position a month ago when it informed employees that dual employment could lead to disciplinary action.
In an email, Infosys said, “Any employee, who wishes to take up gig work, may do so with the prior consent of their manager and BP-HR, and in their personal time, for establishments that do not compete with Infosys or Infosys’ clients.” Moreover, Infosys, as an organization that values learning, fully supports its employees in undertaking additional projects.
“Now for gig opportunities in the external environment, we support the aspirations of our employees to learn beyond their work. We will support them to work on certain gig projects after the prior approval of the managers. We are also developing more comprehensive policies while ensuring contractual and confidentiality commitments are fully respected. However, to be clear, we do not support dual employment,” Parekh said.
The decision makes Infosys the first major IT company to allow its employees to take part-time jobs, amid ongoing debates about moonlighting, a term used to describe employees who do a second job while being paid by another company.
Parekh also talked about an internal gig-finding platform called Accelerate, which he says the company would prefer its employees to use for learning opportunities in their spare time. He did not specify whether these internal gig-finding appearances by Accelerate will be financially rewarded in addition to the regular salary packages.
The sources for this piece include an article in TheRegister.