Are You Sharing Your Employees with Another Employer?

How many of your employees do you think hold a second job? This isn’t a particularly outlandish concept, but one thing that has come about as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and its surge of remote work is that some employees hold two jobs at the same time, and not in the way that you might expect.

According to the United States Census, around 8.9 percent of workers hold more than one job. That’s around 13 million workers who do it, whether it’s to get ahead or to simply make ends meet.

We all know that side-hustles are a very real thing for some employees who want to get ahead, whether it’s saving up for a vacation, a down payment on a home, or some other major expense. They might work a part-time job after hours. The problem is not with these employees—it’s with employees who work two, full-time, asynchronous jobs at the same time.

We know this is a controversial topic, and it’s one that you might not have thought about, but it’s something that could potentially impact the quality of work for employees who struggle to make ends meet.

Some employers feel that employees working multiple jobs are costing them money, and depending on how it is done, they might be. For example, if an employee is using their time working one job to perform work for the other, it could lead to work for your job being performed haphazardly or without focus. In some professions, this could lead to dire consequences.

We know that you can’t really do anything about your employees holding multiple jobs, and we aren’t here to tell you that you should implement any policies to actively prevent this or to punish them for it. That said, you do have a responsibility to your company to hire workers that can pull off their day-to-day tasks in a way that is undivided and focused to the best of their abilities. Strictly speaking, it might be worth having a frank and open discussion with employees who you think might be burning themselves out by working too much.

In order to keep the problem of “overemployment” to a minimum, we recommend that you consider the following:

• Make sure your employees maintain an appropriate work-life balance—at least for your own company.
• Compensate your employees as well as you can, budget pending.
• Understand that everyone’s circumstances are different and that some employees simply cannot afford to live on just one salary alone.

At the end of the day, we think it’s important to understand one thing: nobody wants to work themselves to death. Do what you can to make your employees’ workplace experiences as comfortable as possible. After all, we’re all human.

One way you can dramatically reduce the stress of the workplace is through implementing appropriate technology solutions that make your employees’ jobs and duties easier to perform. With the right support on your side, you can help your employees be as productive as possible before they leave your office and set their sights on their side-gig. To learn more about how we can help you best manage your technology, contact White Mountain IT Services at 603-889-0800.