Infosys Fires ‘Several Employees’ Due To Moonlighting; Refuses To Kill Work From Home For 3.45 Lakh Workforce

Infosys has maintained that it will continue with its flexible approach to work.

No hard and fast rule yet

It has not mandated any fixed number days that the employees need to attend office in person.

CEO Salil Parekh said their India offices “have about 45,000 employees in the office at any given time, and this is huge given where we were a few months ago

We are finding that the approach taken so far has been well received.”

Continue providing support and flexibility 

Over time the company will ensure employees have all required support to return to office.

He explained that there are “several client situations that require specific action” which will be followed as per clients’ requirements.

However, where the company is able to provide some flexibility it shall continue to do so.

Three phase plan

Earlier, Infosys said it has a three-phased plan when it comes to working from home.

In the first phase it will encourage employees who are in their home locations where DCs (development centres) are located or are in the upcountry town close to the DCs to come to the office twice a week.

In the second phase, Chief Financial Officer Nilanjan Roy said they will encourage people who are outside the DC towns to start preparing over the next few months to possibly make a comeback to their base DCs.

Then in the long term the company is looking at a hybrid model depending upon the clients, regulatory environment and a number of other considerations.

Sacked people for moonlighting

Reaffirming its stance against moonlighting, Parekh said that over the last year they let go of employees who were found to be working for two companies, but did not reveal the exact number.

“To be clear, we do not support dual employment. 

If we’ve found in the past employees who are doing blatant work in two specific companies, where there is confidentiality issues, we have let go of them in the last 12 months,” Parekh said at a press briefing.

Internal gig work

Despite the stance, it provided gig work projects internally under its Accelerate programme.

As part of the programme employees are free to take up additional work at work or even outside for career growth, after prior approval from managers.