Moonlighting unethical only when it comes into conflict with primary employer's interest

Traditional employer-employee relationship is going through a lot of changes with gig economy picking up. Similarly, many employees are also moonlighting, sparking a debate in the Indian IT industry. Moreover, organisations are facing the challenge to manage workforce in a hybrid work environment. In a conversation with Bizz Buzz, Sumeet Doshi, the Country Manager of the Indian arm of workforce management firm Ultimate Kronos Group (UKG), said that workforce management solutions will play in a critical role in providing crucial support in this transition phase. He also said that moonlighting can't be termed as unethical if employee's actions are not in conflict with the interest of his primary employer. Doshi said that India is a significant R&D centre for UKG globally. Indian business of the UKG is also growing robustly with adoption across sectors.

There are lot of debate around moonlighting. As a leading workforce management company, what are your views on this aspect?

It is more complex than just terming it as ethical or unethical. If an employee is doing two or three jobs apart from his regular employment, then it is illegal. So, there are a lot of areas where moonlighting can be a significant challenge. But it is also not right to term it unethical because if an employee is doing all the work for the company and then doing a little bit extra to augment his income. As long as he or she is not creating an issue for the primary company, he/she works for; then would you call that unethical? Yes, there are many companies in India where the company contracts restrict any outside work. So, if you have signed a contract, you better abide by that. It is important for the companies to look at what developmental aspects they can look at. If an employee is doing some outside work for earning some extra money and he is good worker, then why not the company have a relook at his compensation? Because, it connects to people leaving their jobs; it connects to 'Great Resignation.' It all boils down to the fact that as a company how well are you engaged with your employees? How much employees feel excited to work for you? How do you manage the growth and compensation aspects of an employee? So, there is no definite right or wrong answer to moonlighting.

Other points, I want to talk about is there are some IT companies who have gone out and said that it is unethical. But there are other companies who employ a lot of gig workers are more than welcoming to moonlighting. It brings us to another discussion regarding part-time work which is prevalent outside the US. In US, around 59 million workers are classified as gig workers.

Is moonlight as a phenomenon an outcome of WFH (work from home) operating model? Will this fade as people come back to offices?

The subversive activities that can be done by employees can only happen if staffers work from home (WFH). So, the opportunities to do moonlighting by employees would go away. However, the general assumption in such a scenario is that everyone who is doing moonlighting is cheating. I think, that is over-generalising. But, will moonlighting go away? It may not. Will it come down? I think, the answer is yes.

Does Ultimate Kronos Group (UKG) as a leading workforce management & HR management company see technology playing a role as gig economy takes wings across the world?

The moment companies want to do something like this (mix of full time and part time workers), they require right technology model. Because, companies require correct technology layers to manage it. The moment gig work mixes with full time jobs, companies have to design right technology infrastructure. As a company, we help organisations to design those rules which allow them to allocate employees much more flexibly. Then, the system automatically tracks that employee. The real concern of employees when they do moonlighting is regarding the productivity. So, it is important to provide the tools that track an manage the output of work of employees in any environment. Organisations are becoming hybrid. That is the reason that organisations require tools that is a good mix of input and output management, which is where a lot of organisations are struggling today. With the workforce management tools we have, organisations can completely solve this problem. I keep saying in my conversation with companies that in 2020, we have the great challenge in terms of work from home. In 2022, the world is going through a bigger challenge of hybrid work.

The level of globalisation from Indian companies will be phenomenally high. The biggest pain point for the CHRO (Chief Human Resources Officer) will be coming from compliance to various regulations. Though IT and related sectors are well-versed with such requirements, other sectors are not so well-prepared. I do believe that increasing globalisation with multiple types of employees coupled with compliance needs, will lead to more role of workforce management in coming years.

How big is UKG's India team? Is India the largest centre for your company outside of the US?

Yes, India is the largest centre outside of the US. We have 2,300 employees working in India. Majority of our people sit in our Noida office. Also, a very large part of our R&D is delivered out of India. Globally, we are around 14,000 employees out of which 2,300 are in India. Some part of our India centre is also work as a GCC (global capability centre). As far as hiring is concerned, we are aggressively hiring. We plan to hire another 500 people in the next few months.

What kind of innovation is being done out of India centre? Are global products and solutions designed and developed out of India?

Yes, it's collaborative efforts between our US and India R&D centres. They are basically one team.

How is the India business performing? Can you throw some light into this aspect?

As we are workforce management company, the best metric is to the number of employees being managed by our IT solutions. We manage around a million employees across different customers who actually use our solutions in India. But, we just scratched the tip of the iceberg.

Our India business is growing very fast. The interest is very high across different verticals. Some of the key verticals for us are manufacturing. IT sector is also a big space for us. Logistics, warehousing and transportation is another big area for us. Retail & ecommerce is another vertical of importance for us.

How do you view business environment given the economic uncertainty across the US and Europe?

I see India as very resilient. I don't see any growth slowdown in India. I see growth in India for all our verticals. There are a lot of talks about how economy will pan out in coming months. But, workforce management as a solution helps organisations to improve employee productivity. Globally, we will continue to see growth.