The Anatomy Of Moonlighting Remote Workers
TeleworkPH
Published: September 11, 2022
Moonlighting, side gig, second job… extra income can come with many names. How do you feel about your workers moonlighting? What about your remote workers? Does it affect their performance?
It seems that hustling 24/7 has become a status symbol. Lack of sleep and working even on weekends has become the lifestyle to covet.
According to Resume Builder, “69% of remote workers in the United States are working on a second job.”
In that quest for the proverbial financial freedom, employees look for flexibility in work arrangements rather than being tied to a 9-to-5 job. People are understandably looking for more ways to earn and supplement their primary income.
Well, people want to make ends meet or to be able to provide more for their families. Nothing against that, but if it impedes your performance at work and kills productivity, there must be a better route. If it negatively impacts your health, that isn’t the way to be financially free after all.
While this may be beneficial to employees who have side hustles apart from a full-time job, it can shrink the time and energy crucial to winging it in the productivity game. Companies tend to falter and not meet KPIs due to fatigue and lack of concentration. Imagine if your entire team is out of focus and underperforming. Not a good sign.
So, will moonlighting be a win-win for both employees and companies? Should companies give this a wink or a hard pass?
We’ll have a roundup of what moonlighting looks like and its impact on customer experience and your bottom line.
Can We Make Moonlighting Work?
Moonlighting has other jobs or side hustles on top of your full-time job. Employers may feel that moonlighting is against employees’ code, especially because one has to render total productive hours while at work. If this is the case with your company, it’s best to create regulations to safeguard your company from moonlighting predicaments.
Whether you work on a hybrid or office-based setup, employment requires total commitment and focus on getting the job done right.
Knowing that a person can only be productive when rendering specific hours intended for deep work, it may be impossible to be completely focused and deliver your best work if you work multiple jobs in a day.
We get it. Working multiple jobs or projects is financially rewarding, especially if you can efficiently juggle tasks.
More jobs = More income?
Well, it depends.
Whatever happened to LESS is MORE?
The reality is that we can’t be everything to everyone, no matter how superhuman we can be. We can only do so much in a day as we have physical and mental limitations that won’t keep up with our limitless drive and unrelenting grit.
If employees took more jobs than they could handle, some things could fall through the cracks. They tend to forget to report critical information for product development or fall asleep while on shift for customer support.
While your mindset is so willing to put in the work, your body can’t handle it all at once.
In the same way, if you hire freelancers, you won’t have complete reign over their time because they are independent contractors who are free to work with multiple clients or businesses. This can also work for short-term projects or ongoing and repetitive tasks that won’t need much supervision.
Set the Right Expectations
Eliminate the guesswork by setting the right expectations. Transparency and commitment are a two-way street, so set the right tone by opening up about moonlighting issues and your rules for taking on extra jobs while employed full-time.
In some instances, moonlighting may not be a problem if employees are honest about it and can effectively manage two or three jobs. Some employers know how tough the economy is, and people find it necessary to work multiple jobs to feed their families.
However, companies also want to safeguard the integrity of their business. So, if you have an employee who signed up to work full-time and is not meeting the deliverables on specified timelines or lacks focus while at work, then it’s time to be more upfront and confront the issue.
With that in mind, you can set the ground rules and lay down expectations such as being at work on time and that working multiple jobs can’t be an excuse for recurring tardiness or absences.
While it may be impossible to remove moonlighting completely, there is always a proactive way to address it.
At Telework PH, we build a cherry-picked team to match your business’s unique requirements. And we do not just give you anyone available. We provide you with trained and well-vetted professionals equipped to handle the day-to-day hurdles of your business. Find out how our team can help you maximize your days like Fridays, so you can take your weekends back and make it roll like woohoo, it’s weekend!
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