Tag Archives: employment

What’s Moonlighting? Infosys bans, IBM warns, Wipro cracks whip

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As the issue of moonlighting or working elsewhere to make extra money in India is plaguing many tech giants after the Work From Home concession that entailed tech employees work remotely, several Indian tech giants are facing the challenge to keep their workforce committed and focused.

The ethical issue has been raised by tech services giant Infosys first, followed by cloud Major IBM on Wednesday. Infosys has already made it clear that the practice is not ethical and the company may fire those who are moonlighting.

However, no company has so far issued any framework to monitor its employees who are moonlighting as legally it is still daunting to gather evidence and withstand legal suits in courts. Secondly, the problem is not new in smaller and minor companies which have been struggling to pay higher wages to employees to retain them. Often, they blink to let the workforce work elsewhere in non-working hours.

Moreover, the issue is legally overwhelming for the companies as strict guidelines or framework of supervising or monitoring employees is often termed as violation of privacy rules in many courts and they may stand loose the legal battle even after firing such employees.

But the issue has already bogged down even major companies. Besides infosys, IBM Managing Director  Sandip Patel said that the company’s position is exactly that of the overall industry in the country. “All of our workers when they are employed, they sign an agreement which says that they are going to be working full-time for IBM. So moonlighting is not ethically right for them to get into,” he said.

However, some startups are encouraging employees to opt for moonlighting or work outside their primary working hours. Swiggy has encouraged the practice but the traditional companies are calling it cheating and unethical and issued warning to employees from practising Moonlighting even in extra hours.

In one case, a techie who was interviewed by a Hyderabad-based company found that he hired another techie to work on his behalf, while he is engaged in working on other projects. He has been summarily fired now but the issue has brought to light the glaring anomaly in misuse of a pact with the company.

Infosys has already warned employees on Monday against moonlighting, saying that involvement in such practice can result in “disciplinary action including termination of employment”. “No two-timing, no moonlighting”, the company said in an internal memo, adding that it “strictly discourages dual employment”.

Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji recently said that the concept of a second job amounts clearly to “plain and simple” cheating. “There is a lot of chatter about people moonlighting in the tech industry. This is cheating — plain and simple,” he emphasised.

AI to help India recruiters to eliminate bias, pace up process

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As artificial intelligence (AI) is entering all office systems, nearly 50 per cent of recruiters believe that it will become a regular part of their hiring process in the coming years, said a report by chat-based direct hiring platform Hirect.

A whopping 96.5 per cent of recruiters at Indian startups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in India believe that the use of AI will improve the recruitment process and eliminate bias from the hiring process, said the report released on Tuesday.

And 52 per cent of the recruiters said building a diverse workforce is necessary to address the huge disparity in the representation of women in leadership roles, 97.4 per cent of them believe that skill-based hiring is the future and necessary and 87 per cent of recruiters are “in favour of retaining old employees instead of hiring new ones.”

“In the employee-driven market, the employers must quickly adapt to the current reality of talent acquisition to remain competitive in today’s labour market,” said Raj Das, Global Co-founder and CEO of Hirect India.

The startups often rely on referrals and that is why startups formulate referral policies and around 88.2 per cent of recruiters believe that referral is the best way to hire people with the right talents, added the report.

 

Action plan for new generation of youths

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The Minister of State (I/C) for Youth Affairs and Sports Shri Vijay Goel said in the Rajya Sabha today that for unleashing the creative power and commitment of the new generation of youth, the Government has introduced the National Youth Policy, 2014 (NYP-2014). The vision of the Policy is “To empower youth of the country to achieve their full potential, and through them enable India to find its rightful place in the community of nations”. The policy lays down five well thought out objectives and 11 priority areas, namely, Education, Employment and Skill Development, Entrepreneurship, Health and Healthy Lifestyle, Sports, Promotion of Social Values, Community Engagement, Participation in politics and governance, Youth engagement, Inclusion and Social Justice.

In a written reply he said, the implementation of the Policy is the collective responsibility of all concerned Central Ministries/Departments, State Governments as well as other stakeholders. A number of Central Ministries/Departments, including the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, are implementing schemes/programmes having bearing on development and empowerment of youth in the 11 specified priority areas. The Department of Youth Affairs is playing the coordinating/ facilitating role, for implementation of the Policy, besides directly implementing some Schemes/ Programmes for development and empowerment of youth.

Fixation of Pension: How to Calculate?

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In implementation of Government’s decision on the recommendation of the Seventh Central Pay Commission (7th CPC), orders have been issued vide Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare O.M. No. 38/37/16-P&PW(A) (i) dated 04.08.2016 for revision of provisions regulating pension/gratuity/ commutation of pension/family pension/disability pension/ex-gratia lump-sum compensation, etc. in respect of the employees retiring on or after 01.01.2016.v For revision of pension of pre-2016 civil pensioners, the 7th CPC recommended the following two formulations:

(i) Notional Pay of employees who retired prior to 01.01.2016 may be fixed in the Pay Matrix on the basis of the Pay Band and Grade Pay at which they retired, by adding the number of increments he/ she had earned in that level while in service, to the minimum of the corresponding level in the matrix. Fifty percent of the total amount so arrived at shall be the revised pension.

(ii) The pension, as had been fixed at the time of implementation of the 6th CPC recommendations, may be multiplied by 2.57 to arrive at an alternate value for the revised pension.

7th CPC recommended that the pensioners may be given the option of choosing the formulation which is more beneficial to them. Orders were issued for revision of pension as per Formulation (ii) above vide Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare O.M. No. 38/37/16-P&PW(A) (ii) dated 04.08.2016 and the pension disbursing authorities were advised to make payment of revised pension accordingly without waiting for the revised pension payment authority. A Committee under the chairmanship of Secretary, Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare was constituted to examine the feasibility of Formulation (i). The Committee observed that Formulation (i) as recommended by the 7th CPC might be difficult to implement in a large number of cases and this method may also cause anomalies.

In implementation of the recommendations of the aforesaid Committee, orders have been issued vide Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare O.M. No. 38/37/16-P&PW(A) dated 12.05.2017. It has been provided that the revised pension/family pension w.e.f. 01.01.2016 in respect of all Central civil pensioners/family pensioners may be revised by notionally fixing their pay in the pay matrix recommended by the 7th CPC in the level corresponding to the pay in the pay scale/pay band and grade pay at which they retired/died by notional pay fixation under each intervening Pay Commission based on the Formula for revision of pay. 50% of the notional pay as on 01.01.2016 shall be the revised pension and 30% of this notional pay shall be the revised family pension w.e.f. 1.1.2016. Higher of the two Formulations i.e. the pension/family pension already revised in accordance with this Department’s OM dated 04.08.2016 or the revised pension/family pension as worked out by notional pay fixation method, shall be the revised pension/family pension w.e.f. 01.01.2016.

There were around 55.51 lakh pensioners/family pensioners (including defence pensioners/family pensioners) as on 31.03.2016. All Pension Sanctioning Authorities have been advised to accord top priority to the work of revision of pension and issue revised Pension Payment Authority in implementation of the above orders expeditiously.

There is no proposal for creation of any other organisation for pension related issues.

This was stated by the Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Minister of State for Prime Minister’s Office, Dr Jitendra Singh in a written reply to question by Adv. Narendra Keshav Sawaikar and Shri P. Nagarajan in the Lok Sabha today.