Secondary Employment is when one, or more, of your employees work a job outside of their employment with your business. There are obligations on the employee as well as some things you can do to safeguard your business. While this may seem a simple concept, it is important that all employers understand what is required of an employee seeking secondary employment, particularly when it comes to work health and safety.
Responsibilities of employees
Regardless of anything written in their employment agreement employees have certain obligations prior to starting another role. These obligations can include an employee:
• not acting in a way that can be misleading or deceptive towards you
• maintaining confidentiality and not acting in a way that damages you or your business
• managing the work level to not impact their performance at either job
• continue to act in good faith and with ongoing and open communication
How do I manage employees with secondary employment?
If you want an employment agreement to outline that an employee cannot start another additional role, you need to have a good reason. Some examples of a good reason include:
• protecting your commercially sensitive information and intellectual property rights
• to restrict any potential impact on your commercial reputation
• preventing any genuine conflict of interest that cannot be managed except by restricting secondary employment
Health and safety at work and secondary employment
When it comes to safety concerns coming from secondary employment of your employees, it is ultimately an obligation of your employee to take reasonable care that their additional hours of work do not place other people in the workplace at risk.
For advice on managing employees with second jobs or employment, contact Employsure on 0800 568 012.
