Wipro boss gets "hate mail" after firing 300 employees for "moonlighting"

New Delhi: A day after Wipro fired 300 employees for moonlighting, Wipro boss Rishad Premji on Thursday said he is not deterred by the 'hate mail' he's been getting over his tweet, the Times of India reported. And not just the Wipro, but some other tech majors such as IBM and Infosys have also joined the chorus to call moonlighting 'an unethical practice'. "Cheating, plain and simple" is how Rishad Premji described it.

And Wipro remained stern in its latest statement: "Certain employees found to be operating in circumstances that are in direct conflict with Wipro's interests have been terminated."

After disapproving the practice of moonlighting, Wipro on Wednesday fired 300 employees who were found to be working for competitors at the same time.

"Employees can have a transparent dialogue with the organization about their second or weekend work, but we discovered 300 employees who were working for direct competitors. There is no place for them," Wipro chairman Rishad Premji said on Wednesday. He also called it an act of integrity violation in its deepest form.

For the unversed, moonlighting is when the employees take up a second job beyond the usual job. As most of the 'normal' jobs are from 9 AM to 5 PM, the other job would usually be at night, hence the word 'moon' is used for moonlighting. Some of the employees with low salaries usually take it up for additional income with the remote working facility.

Wipro boss Rishad Premji said the employees can have conversations around playing in a band or working on a project over the weekend; however, he sought to separate such cases from secretly working for competitors. "There is no space for someone to work for Wipro and competitor XYZ and they (the other company) would feel exactly the same way if they were to discover the same situation," he said.

Earlier, Infosys had written a strong mail titled "no double lives to employees, saying: "No two timing no moonlighting!" It cited clauses in the offer letter to drive home the point.