The company is looking at allowing side gigs as long as they do not interrupt the work at Tech Mahindra and is only for a short duration, such as over the weekend or a couple of hours in the week, said Soin, who is also its head of marketing.
After Swiggy, Tech Mahindra will be one of the few companies to have a formal moonlighting policy in place. In the IT services space, Infosys, which had earlier warned employees against taking up a side hustle,
recently softened its stance, as reported by ET.
Tech Mahindra’s moonlighting policy will include certain principles — the work can’t be with the competition, it should adhere to the master service agreement or the contract of the customer, needs written permission from the company and cannot contravene the interests of Tech Mahindra.
“One needs to be open about it. If you come and take written permission, it’s allowed, but there is a process to be followed,” Soin told ET.
Tech Mahindra’s chief executive, CP Gurnani, in a post-earnings conference early this month said that the
Mahindra group company was yet to come out with a policy on moonlighting because it had to be something that was compliant with local laws in more than 90 countries where it had operations.
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The company has taken action against people who are not disclosing their side hustles, Soin said. “For example, if you have applied for a job and we find you’re moonlighting currently, we would obviously not give you the job. We have actually stopped a considerable amount of people from coming in,” he said.
Food delivery company Swiggy had announced its moonlighting policy in August. It had said that employees could take up external projects for pro-bono or economic consideration based on internal approvals. “This could encompass activity outside of office hours or on weekends that does not impact their productivity on the full-time job or have a conflict of interest with Swiggy’s business in any way,” it had stated.
Attrition slows
Tech Mahindra’s quarterly annualised
attrition rate reduced to 16% in the July-September period from 18.1% a quarter earlier, Soin said, adding: “We are among the lowest in peers in terms of attrition.”
This has happened with the help of initiatives like employee engagement activities, especially in the last two pandemic years, focus on hiring in small cities, innovative annualised incentives and specific targeted, outcome-based quarterly incentives, he said.
Currently, Tech Mahindra has about 10% of the workforce in tier-2 and tier-3 cities. “We have enabled employees to work from hometowns in tier-2 and-3 cities,” Soin said. The company has operations in over 10 tier-2 cities, with over 5,500 employees.
“During the last two years of the pandemic, employees wanted to be closer to their families. And our value proposition in tier-two cities is that they will always keep you there,” he said.
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