One moonlighting scam shouldn’t derail the future of work | Vineeta Dwivedi – Associate Professor of Organisation and Leadership Studies | SPJIMR and Snehal Shah Professor of Organisation and Leadership Studies| SPJIMR

Soham Parekh worked multiple jobs. At once. Yes, that’s outrageous. And yes, it’s exactly the kind of headline that makes remote work sceptics say, “See? This is why work from home doesn’t work!”

The co-founder of Playground AI recently revealed on X that Soham Parekh, an Indian software engineer, had been working simultaneously at three to four (some claim up to six) US startup firms, often YC-backed, without disclosing it to any employer. His impressive resume, including degrees from Georgia Tech and the University of Mumbai, and strong interview skills helped him secure multiple roles. However, weeks (or even days) into each role, alarming inconsistencies, missed meetings, conflicting schedules, and overlapping GitHub contributions led to suspicions.

The story has ignited wider discussions about oversight in remote hiring, reminding companies that while remote work can enable flexibility, it also demands strong systems for alignment, ethics, and communication. But let’s not confuse a breach of ethics with a failure of the model.

The Soham Parkeh story is not a reflection of what hybrid work is or should be. Recent research has shown that hybrid work, when done right, boosts both retention and performance. What it needs isn’t knee-jerk surveillance or blanket Return to Office (RTO) orders.

What it needs is clear communication, trust, and smart policy-making. Well-structured hybrid work isn’t a liability but a strategic asset. In one of the largest randomised control trials ever conducted, Stanford’s Nick Bloom and co-authors found that employees working two days a week from home were as productive and just as promotable as their office-bound peers, while turnover dropped by around 33%, with especially strong gains among women, non-managers, and long-commute staff.

A new equilibrium has been achieved in the UK labour market, where people are working from home (WFH) more than in almost any other country (1.8 WFH days per week). Despite recent corporate return-to-office (RTO) drives, WFH levels have stabilised after declining in 2023 and are not showing any indications of retreating. Hybrid work is expected rather than the exception. It is also the most in-demand benefit, and flexible organisations can be attractive for employees.

A US nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) study, released in May 2025, concluded that inflexible five-day office mandates today are outdated and counterproductive and risk eroding talent and performance. According to the study, remote work has definite benefits for executives who embrace existing regulatory guidance, strong performance tracking, and purposeful culture-building and found that the ability to recruit and retain employees was the biggest advantage of remote work. Remote work also boosts the labour participation of older workers, two-career couples, workers with disabilities, and workers with caregiving duties.

Taken together, the evidence is clear: hybrid work creates a win-win-win, boosting retention, satisfaction, and productivity. Leaders building resilient, future-ready organisations need to pay heed.

The push for Return to Office (RTO)

Yet, major corporations like Amazon, JPMorgan, Apple, Google, IBM, and Meta have recently intensified RTO mandates. Executives often justify this return with two common arguments: CEOs like Andy Jassy (Amazon) and Jamie Dimon (JPMorgan) insist that in-person presence fosters innovation, mentorship, and cultural cohesion. There’s also a pervasive belief that employees are more productive when seen and that absence means disengagement.

The RTO mandate has really made this debate louder in recent times; however, expert voices have made incongruous claims. And not all companies have the same policies. In fact, most big tech companies have had hybrid policies of varying degrees.

According to a study by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, S&P 500 companies that force employees to return to the office later face “abnormally high” rates of employee turnover and struggle to fill unfilled positions. People who leave are frequently women, older, or more experienced. The conclusions are based on over three million tech and finance workers’ LinkedIn employment. Companies seem to be caught between a rock and a hard place—the RTO mandates chip away at their attractiveness as an employer, while blanket WFH policies do more harm than good. To resolve this dilemma, we offer three strategic policy-making recommendations that move beyond one-size-fits-all mandates and toward context-sensitive hybrid models.

Clear communication

The foundational principle of Organisational Communication Theory (Katherine Miller 2006) is that effective communication is central to coordination, engagement, and organisational effectiveness, regardless of physical location.

Hybrid work doesn’t fail because people are remote, but it fails when goals are vague, feedback loops are broken, or accountability is inconsistent. Workers at companies that prioritised the ‘3C’ strategy—culture (including goal clarity), manager competency, and connection—were three times more likely to assess their manager as extremely effective and four times more likely to offer a high Net Promoter Score (NPS).

Team-level decision-making

The team becomes the organising unit for creating a collaborative virtual and offline culture while enforcing guardrails on what is off-limits for WFH arrangements. Recognising loneliness and isolation as real side effects of the WFH phenomenon, team leaders can facilitate organising virtual social events, celebrate milestones, and encourage information sharing. As Raj Choudhury of Harvard Business School says in this podcast, the team-level autonomy approach, where departments co-create work patterns that suit their operational needs, is proving far more effective than executive fiat.

Focus on performance, not the process

Employers must set transparent expectations and design systems focused on outcomes, not hours. It entails a mind shift from monitoring presence to focusing on deliverables through regular reviews. Teams need to talk more, not less; define what good work looks like; and hold each other accountable for that. Flexibility is a privilege, yes. But it’s also a competitive edge when governed with clarity and fairness.