Do you think that one of your employees is working for another company? Is it affecting the quality of their work at your business?
If you don’t already have this problem, you may soon encounter it. This is because, according to a 2019 census report, about 13 million workers have multiple jobs.
Why do people work more than one job?
People work multiple jobs for a variety of reasons.
For some, it’s a financial issue. They can’t make ends meet with one job, so they require additional work.
In other cases, people may do one job for the money and another job because they enjoy the work.
For instance, some people may do dog grooming on the side because they like working with animals.
Contractors and freelancers are perfectly within their rights to work for multiple employers.
However, if they’re not living up to the terms of your contract with them, you have the right to terminate the contract.
Is working more than one job against the terms of contract?
If your full-time employee is working a second job and it’s affecting the quality of their work, the issue is a bit more complicated.
To begin with, you’ll want to have your suspicions confirmed. The ideal way to do this is to use a background check program that provides employment information, such as CheckPeople.com.
Once you have proof that your employee has a second job, you need to check what it says in your employee handbook or employment contract.
If the employee handbook or employment contract expressly forbids employees from working a second job, you have some leverage.
Is the other job creating performance issues?
You may also be able to do something if your employee is leaving work early to go to their other job.
If it’s simply a matter of job performance, it may not be in your best interest to fire the employee right away.
Hiring and training a new worker is time-consuming and costly.
Therefore, it might be in the company’s best interests if you first met with the employee to discuss improving their performance.
You don’t need to bring up the fact that they have a second job. Instead, you can focus on performance issues.
This can include things like absenteeism, frequent tardiness, or a decline in their quality of work.
At this point, the worker may admit to having a second job. If not, you can always try to probe a little further to see what they’re willing to share.
However, if their second job violates non-compete or nondisclosure clauses, this is a more serious matter.
Discovering the nature of their second job will tell you if this is a possibility.
However, further digging will be needed to be entirely certain. In this case, it may be in the best interest of the company to fire the employee.
However, before you do so, you will need to look into your background check’s legality.
In some states, digging into an employee’s after-work activities may be illegal. At this point, it’s probably best to get upper management involved.
Conclusion
It’s relatively simple to find out whether your employee is working for another company.
What you do with this information depends on how your employee’s second job affects the job they do for you.
Unless it’s explicitly stated in your employment contract or employee handbook, your employee can work for another company.
However, if their second job affects their performance, you will need to discuss these issues with the employee.
Furthermore, if you discover that your employee has another job and in holding this job, they have violated a non-compete or nondisclosure clause, this is illegal.
In this case, you will want to involve upper management as this is a more serious issue.
