Moonlighting can create a conflict of interest

Moonlighting creates two problems. I will give both the positives and negatives. Cost of living is very high, and salary may not be enough. The problem is that there is a conflict of interest component in moonlighting, which we have to address.

For ages, if you are working with a company, and on the side, you go and teach for two hours, this kind of moonlighting is not bad because you are building your technical strength. Another case is you are working with a company and you are teaching poor children in your free time that is acceptable.

The problem is that if you are working for a company, its customers and then you work for another customer and the company has no means to know where the data is going. It is more of a security concern. The service business is based on trust and making sure that complete secrecy of work is maintained.

So, as long as that is not violated, that is all right. In our contracts, it has been very clearly mentioned that if you are working with us, you can't work in areas that can create a conflict of interest. In the engineering services industry, we are working with the product design of the customers. Therefore, moonlighting can't be allowed when you work on such projects.

- Amit Chadha, CEO & MD of L&T Technology Services