Amid moonlighting worries, Wipro tells employees to work from office at least thrice a week

Wipro has sent an advisory mail to its Indian employees to work from office at least thrice a week starting October 10. It also said the office will be not open on Wednesdays except for employees who work on critical work.

“We encourage you to work from office on at least 3 of the 4 days,” the email said.

The move will “help us enjoy the camaraderie and team spirit of connecting in person while maintaining hybrid work flexibility”, it said.


ET has reviewed a copy of the email.

Read: IT firms reach out for legal help to address moonlighting among staff

Bigger rival Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) had recently advised 85% of its employees to return to office at least thrice a week, while senior-level executives have been asked to do so five times a week, as ET reported last month. The respective managers will prepare a roster informing associates about their workdays, company insiders had said.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, most IT companies have been working on a mostly work from home model with only 20% of its workforce working out of offices so far.

Wipro told ET it “has adopted a flexible, hybrid approach in our return to office policy”.

“Beginning October 10, employees in leadership roles will return to work from offices in India thrice a week. Offices will be open on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays,” India's third largest IT company said in response to ET’s queries. “Our carefully deliberated back-to-office policy is meant to allow employees the flexibility of remote work while ensuring that our teams can access experiences as well as opportunities and build meaningful relationships at work.” it added.

Teams working from office as per client requirements will continue to have access as per their current schedule with no change, the company said in its advisory mail to employees. Certain mission critical projects typically require employees to operate from physical offices.

This comes days after Wipro’s executive chairman Rishad Premji had taken a tough stance against moonlighting and termed it as “cheating”. He had also said that 300 employees were terminated as they were working for competitors while still being on the company’s payroll.

The practice, commonly known as moonlighting, refers to pursuing more than one job at a time and remote working has helped employees take up this option. Technology and software companies in India are divided on whether to allow their employees to moonlight for other companies while still being on their payrolls or not.