Side Gigs: Is Anyone Noticing?

The sales manager spent several hours in his office conducting performance reviews with his direct reports. Afterward, he went home and put on a new hat, switching gears—and jobs—to conduct a marketing analysis assigned to him by his other employer.

More than one-quarter of US workers—some 28%—report augmenting their primary job with at least one additional job or side hustle, according to a new survey from business-software firm Owl Labs. It didn’t matter much whether or not someone’s primary job was in-office: Among hybrid workers, 31% said they had a secondary job, compared to 27% of in-office workers and 23% of remote workers. Managers were doing double duty, too. Indeed, 31% of managers surveyed said they have at least one additional job, compared to 19% of individual contributors.

At a time when many employees feel anxious about their finances, job security, and professional skills, experts say, it’s understandable that so many would take on other assignments. “It’s a hedge at a time of uncertainty,” says Dennis Deans, Korn Ferry’s global human resources business partner. But companies are also continuing to monitor worker productivity, both to evaluate the impact of new AI tools and to try to reverse years of slow revenue growth.

For some time now, the growing so-called gig economy has raised questions about the role of primary employers. About one-third of firms have policies either restricting or prohibiting employees from working for other companies, according to a study by the Society of Human Resources Management. Many firms prohibit employees from moonlighting in order to avoid conflicts of interest, protect confidential information, or ensure full engagement. But even if their employer doesn’t have a blanket policy, employees aren’t necessarily free to pursue side gigs. Indeed, about half of individual employment contracts, often used for workers with specialty skills or executives, include clauses that limit secondary work. That was the question Korn Ferry managing partner Kate Shattuck had when she learned that a full-time executive she knows also was consulting somewhere else: “You’re trying to build experience, I get that. But you also have an employment contract.”

In the era of hybrid-work arrangements, however, any of these policies could be difficult to enforce. Some software providers can monitor whether a worker is using one employee’s software to do work for another. Time—and more importantly, commitment and enthusiasm—for a project can be harder to track. Indeed, many managers continue to worry about so-called quiet quitting in this context: workers who are putting minimal effort into their primary job in order to conserve time and energy for their secondary one.

For workers, of course, side hustles are about fighting costs in an era of small raises. In the survey, money was the top reason respondents cited for having multiple jobs: 47% said they took the additional role to cover expenses, and 34% said they took it to make more money, even if they didn’t necessarily need it immediately. Still, 38% said they had a second gig because they enjoyed it or it enhanced their skills.

This interest in skills enhancement could create an opening for primary employers, experts say. Surveys have shown that millennial and other young workers want to experience multiple careers in their lifetime. To scratch that itch, an organization could offer workers the benefits of having a second job, either through training or stretch assignments. This would ensure the employee is focused on their primary employer. “Give them a chance to work across and in a lattice versus just a very linear way,” says David Farris, sector lead for Korn Ferry’s Professional Services practice. 

Learn more about Korn Ferry’s Employee Experience capabilities. 

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