Overemployment...any takers?

[Participant]

I couldn't see a thread on this, which surprised me so assuming I haven't missed one...

I think this practice is very well known by everyone at this point, but just in case not, it's basically having multiple full-time jobs at the same time, where each employer may or may not know that you're also employed by someone else.

It's controversial in that although it's not illegal per se / a criminal offence (with some exceptions I'm sure), you are often breaching one or more contracts of employment, and arguably not dedicating 100% of your working effort to a single employee as they'd expect. But then others argue that if you're able to work two or more jobs at once, then why prevent people earning more money (and paying more tax)?

I can absolutely see the appeal. It really has to be remote to work long term, which almost limits the scope to IT jobs, although it's actually possible if only one job is remote.

Imagine cruising on 2 x £100k jobs that you can do with your eyes closed and taking home £10k every month.

 

[VRDoctor]

Does doing two jobs at one employer count?

 

[BUDFORCE]

I probably could do this you know.

The second job would need to be one kind of very flexible/casual/can work when you like, because if both employers want something doing at the same time you've got a problem.

But to be honest, life is too short and I couldn't be arsed with the hassle or stress, there is more to life than money, you'll get caught eventually as well.

 

[slinxy]

while there's nothing legally wrong in some cases of this... when there is a no non compete causes, and the hours are not fixed in the contract.
you can set up a limited company and take the contracts as a company, then pay yourself from that company.

ethically it's wrong.. jobs of that stature require a level of time and commitment to the job and if you are spreading your time across different roles, you will soon get find out.

There are few companies that offer such contracts and fewer roles that warrant that level of pay now a days, especially in niche specialist roles that attract 100k+ within IR35... don't you think the managers of the department know and talk to each other and know who the players are?

I know people who have had three contracts at the same time, been found out and then blackballed from the industry. We sacked them after one day, as we removed him once before and was told not to bother is again, stupidly he thought he could get away with going for another contract with us.
We reported his actions to his other employees and they terminated his contracts too.

We have one guy who was doing this, got found out and removed from all his roles and managed to get a helpdesk role currently... unlucky for him, the company that he was working for has been brought out by one of his previously companies. Let's just see what happens when the TUPE period ends.

We got one guy who I swear must be working at least two roles at the moment, as his output is so bad and when we get anything, it's something someone could do in a small percentage of the time they have taken... let's just say calls are being made and paper work is getting filled.

There's nothing stopping me from working another job at the same time as long as I declare it and the company don't see it as competition but why half-**** something because you haven't got the time to do it correctly when it was needed? think of what reference and rep you will get. Plus I have enough of a headache with the taxes from one job let alone trying to manage two....

 

[Kenai]

Good luck to anyone able to find two suitable employers with sufficient lack of productivity awareness that you can complete two full time jobs in regular working hours without being noticed

 

[Brun]

It's also presumably impossible to do two PAYE jobs legally without at least one employer being aware.

 

[Rroff]

It is an interesting one - albeit not multiple full time jobs (though from what he has said I think the other two are overlapping) we've got a lad taken on recently at work who has 2 other jobs which AFAIK we weren't properly made aware of up front and causes some minor rota/availability conflict and sometimes he is on his phone sorting other business matters on work time. However on the flip side he is actually a pretty hard worker and does a decent job - one of the long timers who is always negative of pretty much everyone even had good things to say! so we seem to be trying to accommodate him for now.

I think it will be a rising challenge with the way things are going and people more and more having to look at supplementing their income and/or companies trying to reduce labour costs by dropping hours, etc.

 

[Jokester]

As a contractor, I don’t have a problem with this - assuming you still do a quality job.

Working from home makes it very easy now to get away with it, but we’ve binned off plenty of people for poor performance where I suspect they were working two full time contracts simultaneously.

 

[bazzabear]

It's easy. Just be an MP, then you can do all manner of extra jobs for which you get paid a surprisingly high amount, but definitely for the work you're definitely doing. It's not a bribe so that you'll represent their interests instead of your constituents, how dare you!

 

[D.P.]

You would need jobs with zero meetings or work colleagues , and very little work to do, and an incompetent manager. Now it wouldn't be impossible but hard to achieve, and very risky as you are likely to get caught and can still have legal proceedings against you as you have like broken multiple rules in the employment contract

 

[Gray2233]

It very much depends on the work you're doing, but I absolutely know people that can and do work for at least two different companies in WFH positions and they're "productive" in both comparative to their colleagues despite the employers being unaware of the fact.

I think it sparks the question of how much some people coast/do the bare minimum, and that a lot of jobs are painfully overpaid and poorly done in general.

I've been in a few positions myself in the past where going above and beyond didn't necessarily benefit you (and sometimes the opposite), it's not a surprise that some people who are legitimately competent are taking on dual positions at different companies under the table. There's too much politicking and nepotism involved in many work environments for questionable wages for all involved, although personally I'd be more inclined to use my extra time to freelance given you're very likely going to get sacked and possibly blacklisted by working two "full time jobs" in the same industries, and that's any potential legal issues aside.

 

[MissChief]

There's a whole subreddit for it with some claiming to have as many as four fully remote jobs and all the pitfalls and problems they have. Some claim to be pulling in over $600k a year across different jobs. It seems to be more common in the US where remote working is more common and seemingly assigned tasks take less than a day to complete or can be automated leaving time for other jobs that may have more time consuming tasks. It does give a measure of resilience against random and immediate layoffs as well. Zero debt, paid off houses, financial security with some claiming to have $1m+ in investments by the time they're 30.

 

[Jim99]

There's a whole subreddit for it with some claiming to have as many as four fully remote jobs and all the pitfalls and problems they have. Some claim to be pulling in over $600k a year across different jobs. It seems to be more common in the US where remote working is more common and seemingly assigned tasks take less than a day to complete or can be automated leaving time for other jobs that may have more time consuming tasks. It does give a measure of resilience against random and immediate layoffs as well. Zero debt, paid off houses, financial security with some claiming to have $1m+ in investments by the time they're 30.

I am deeply suspicious of some of the stories I've read there. There's a bit of an issue with reddit where people can get addicted to karma, and the better the story you tell... the more karma you get. I don't doubt that some employers are stupid enough to not notice that someone earning six figures has produced virtually nothing, but I struggle to believe that multiple people are pulling in 4 salaries at once and not getting found out in any way.

 

[MissChief]

I am deeply suspicious of some of the stories I've read there. There's a bit of an issue with reddit where people can get addicted to karma, and the better the story you tell... the more karma you get. I don't doubt that some employers are stupid enough to not notice that someone earning six figures has produced virtually nothing, but I struggle to believe that multiple people are pulling in 4 salaries at once and not getting found out in any way.

It's a common saying that the higher your pay and the better your title the less actual day-to-day work you do. And the more meetings you have.

 

[slinxy]

We have one lad who works for us, part time for Microsoft as a consultant and has his own events company where he runs events for other companies like AI for AWS. It’s fully declared at our work place and he says it’s a benefit to our workplace, not sure what is work output is like as we don’t work together.

I personally value my free time too much, and I can’t see a world where work will allow me to take time off to represent another company even if they are a partner. It’s not like I can’t show up during a command centre, if needed as I’m at an event for Apple. Or even stop someone from having a holiday as they need to cover me.

We do have community reach out programs.. some of us spend ends working for charities, some of us consult for local small businesses and education places..

Even if I did something during my spare time, I will be using skills and intellectual property of the company to do it… it’s not like I’m going to forget how a system is setup and form a new way of doing it at my second job. Unless it’s something completely different, but I would rather do that for fun.. like fixing bikes for the local kids, it stops being fun when you have commitments and a boss.