300 Wipro techies get pink slips

New Delhi: Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji on Wednesday said the company had found its 300 employees worked with one of its competitors at the same time, and added that action was taken in such cases by terminating their services.

Premji asserted that he stands by his recent comments on moonlighting being a complete violation of integrity in its deepest form.

"The reality is that there are people today working for Wipro and working directly for one of our competitors and we have actually discovered 300 people in the last few months who are doing exactly that," Premji said speaking at AIMA's (All India Management Association) National Management Convention. Asked about the action taken against employees who were found to be working parallely for the company as well as for rivals, Premji, on the sidelines of the event, said that their employment had been terminated for 'act of integrity violation'.

The definition of moonlighting itself is about having another job secretively. As part of transparency, individuals can have candid and open conversations around playing in a band or working on a project over the weekend, he explained.

"That is an open conversation that the organisation and the individual can make a concerted choice about, on whether that works for them or doesn't," he said.

Separating such cases from those where employees secretly worked for competitors, the Wipro top boss made it clear "there is no space for someone to work for Wipro and competitor XYZ and they would feel exactly the same way if they were to discover the same situation." "That is what I meant...so I do stand by what I said...I do think it is violation of integrity if you are moonlighting in that shape and form," he said.