The Economic Times daily newspaper is available online now.

    Moonlighting is the future of work; why not normalise it: Swiggy HR head

    Synopsis

    The Bengaluru-based food delivery start-up has around 5,000 employees and a fleet workforce of over 300,000. According to the company, the policy is available to all full-time employees of Swiggy’s parent company Bundl Technologies, subsidiaries, affiliates, associates, and group companies.

    swiggyETtech
    Illustration: Rahul Awasthi
    Food delivery start-up Swiggy’s moonlighting policy is "inclusive, not draconian, and clearly defines anything that’s conflicting", the company’s human resources head Girish Menon told The Morning Brief, ET’s podcast series, in an exclusive interview.

    “That's the future of work. And that's precisely what we are attempting to do,” he said.

    Elevate Your Tech Prowess with High-Value Skill Courses

    Offering CollegeCourseWebsite
    IIT DelhiIITD Certificate Programme in Data Science & Machine LearningVisit
    MITMIT Technology Leadership and InnovationVisit
    Indian School of BusinessISB Professional Certificate in Product ManagementVisit
    Earlier this month, Swiggy announced India’s first moonlighting policy, which allows all employees to do external work and get paid for it. The external projects need to be outside of office hours or on weekends and not clash with Swiggy’s business.

    Human resources executives from the industry have pointed out that monitoring policies such as moonlighting could be challenging. Menon said employees will be responsible and declare what gigs or projects they're getting into. “We have very clearly defined that anything which is conflicting to our business,.. competition, or intellectual property of Swiggy or they're uniquely advantaged by being part of Swiggy if they have access to certain information, future plans,” he said.

    He added any breaches of code of conduct breach would be treated as any policy breach in any company, and addressed by disciplinary committees, as is the usual practice.

    On how productivity could be measured on its other recent policy about permanent work-from-home for a majority of roles after taking feedback from managers and employees, Menon said: “It's not like everybody's rushing to find the second gig,” Menon said. “We think that just because someone is employed with us for nine hours, they're productive. That's not true.… you can't wake up one day and say I'm going to make everyone productive. It doesn't happen that way,” he said.

    The Bengaluru-based food delivery start-up has around 5,000 employees and a fleet workforce of over 300,000. According to the company, the policy is available to all full-time employees of Swiggy’s parent company Bundl Technologies, subsidiaries, affiliates, associates, and group companies.

    Start-ups, e-commerce, tech and digital companies are among the ones introducing various employee-centric policies to stem steep attrition and falling valuations.

    Menon said the decision to introduce moonlighting was based on intuition and the belief that workplaces would evolve in a certain way. “Moonlighting came more from what we believe will be the future of work, and less about research or data. People with skill will have opportunities to do side gigs, or what they call the side hustle. So why not normalise it,” he said.
    The Economic Times

    Stories you might be interested in