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Conflict of interest, working for the competition, not having you exhausted while you work at your main job, all of these things are possible reasons. Some companies want you available for possible overtime, even if overtime is rare.
conflict of interest, especially in my line of work (legal). according to the employee manuals I wasn't allowed to work at other law firms while employed at the current law firm. however, it's an open secret that many legal staff also side hustle (as temps) at other law firms (document review, word processing, secretarial, etc.) Think "Don't ask, don't tell". I never told, of course, and no one asked. In fact, I'd wager that law firms deliberately wanted temporary staff that was employed full time elsewhere as they tended to be higher quality temps. I don't know...I just know that everywhere I temped was fully aware that I worked full time at another, similar, competitor law firm. While the law firms where I had temped had full knowledge, I never told the law firm where I was employed full time that I temped on the side for obvious reasons.
additionally, as someone mentioned, they want to make sure you're not burning the candle at both ends. your main job wants the lion's share of your energy and time and rightfully so. I was really young when I was doing temp work, so I could easily handle working 9-5 and follow that up with a 6-12a job. definitely wouldn't be the case now and i'm also making far more money and doing harder work, so no side jobs for me.
What you do on your off- time can affect your performance while at your day job.
That's a job performance issue, not a side-job issue. Imagine if the employee manual stipulated what could and could not be done when not at work? Having a newborn baby at home could affect your performance while at your day job.
In the employee manuals I've been subject to over the past 20 years the only concerns were conflict of interest and confidentiality - and incoming employees signed agreements about these, plus there was refresher training on an annual basis.
I ran into that with at least five different employers (and I retired in 2008 so the policy is certainly not new).
Two of those employers required that an employee get written permission to accept that part time job. Both employers were public accounting firms and strictly enforced that policy.
I've never had to sign one, but I know many people that have. I also see it in our contracts for specific job groups. Nothing new. Typically it's for conflict of interest. Anything else, I don't know how I'd feel about it.
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Originally Posted by GearHeadDave
Really? How about the companies that will fire you if you are a smoker? Google Scotts, the lawn care company.
Every day companies gain more and more control over what you do on your "days off".
My company may not fire you, but we don't hire smokers. Granted, we are healthcare, so there is that. I honestly can't believe they do that.
My husband's employer wants to know about side jobs. They pay for his state licenses, so it's reasonable for them to want to know about jobs where he would be using those licenses. His old boss said it was a state law that they had to inform the company about side jobs, but one of his coworkers went to HR because it wasn't a state law.
Same here. For the most part, what you do in your personal time is none of the employer's business. Unless you sign a contract promising otherwise.
Not arguing the premise - but I've also noticed that a lot of polices these days are born out of earlier incidents.
This is a completely theoretical or made up scenario - but let's say a company doesn't have this policy, and then finds out that one of their employees have been doing stuff on the side that is in a conflict of interest. So they fire the employee. But the employe decides to bring a wrongful termination lawsuit. Regardless of whether or not he/she had a case, the fact remains that the company now has to deal with it.
Thus - there will now be a policy addressing this.
Again - not saying this is, in fact, the reasoning. But I've seen a lot of policies get created in response to being burned in the past.
Yes - what you do on your own time should be your own business. But some folks out there simply want all the freedom without the responsibility. And that simply doesn't work.
I work in the financial industry and I absolutely have to report (actually request approval for) outside business activities. They're looking for conflicts of interest that could cause potential problems for the company.
I work in the financial industry and I absolutely have to report (actually request approval for) outside business activities. They're looking for conflicts of interest that could cause potential problems for the company.
My last job before retiring was in IT in the financial industry (a certain large French bank) - same here. It's due to government regulations. We had to operate under both U.S. and EU compliance regimes. We also had to clear any investments with the company before we made them.
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