COVID-19 IMPACT – Working Two Remote Jobs From Home
When most companies sent office-based employees home to work remotely during the COVID pandemic, some enterprising employees got a second remote job without the knowledge of either employer.[1] According to a Wall Street Journal article, this is prevalent enough that there is a website, Overemployed.com,[2] which helps remote workers find (and keep) two remote jobs at the same time. For instance, it gives employees tips on managing LinkedIn with multiple remote jobs.[3] Its founder reported he has made over $300,000.00 a year working two jobs and he “wanted to organize a community to give the man, aka Corporate America, the middle finger for always trying to screw the little people over.”[4]
As lucrative and amusing as it might be for employees, from an employer’s standpoint there are many potential hazards in over-employment:
• If the employer has supplied office equipment, then its computer may be used for the other company’s work and could be exposing IT infrastructure to threats.
• Many company employee handbooks require employees to provide their best effort working for their company and prohibit outside jobs, unless approved. Working an undisclosed second job would violate such a provision.
• Companies also have confidentiality provisions and take steps to protect their confidential proprietary trade secret information through noncompete agreements. If an employee works for the competition as her second job, she may be disclosing corporate trade secrets.
• Ultimately, a company could lose valued customers to the employee’s second employer, solicited by the dual-remote worker in return for commissions or bonuses from the second company.
In Colorado, under the Health Families Workplace Act (“HFWA”) a dual-remote worker who contracts COVID-19 during a public health emergency would be eligible for up to 80 hours[5] of paid leave at the employee’s hourly rate and that employee could collect paid leave from both employers. If an employee wanted take advantage of the HFWA’s intent, the employee could also use up to six (6) days[6] a year as paid sick leave from his first job in order to work for the other company and continue to receive two pay checks for the alleged sick period.
Takeaway
To protect company trade secrets, employers may want to remind remote employees of their confidentiality and noncompetition agreements, re-issue copies of the agreements to employees and have them re-confirm that they are abiding by those agreements. Companies with remote workers who believe employees my be working a second job may remind employees of their obligations to commit themselves to work for your company. Employers should consider measuring productivity to ensure that he employee is actually working the expected hours for your company. Some employers may also require employees to return to the office to work a certain number of days during the week, which may also make it more difficult to work two remote jobs.
[1] Ashleigh Carter, http://nowthisnews.com/news/remote-employees-are-secretly-working-two-jobs-at-once-with-the-help-of-this-website (last visited Aug. 26, 2021).
[2] Overemployed, http://overmployed.com (last visited Aug. 26, 2021).
[3] Overemployed, http://overmployed.com/managing-linkedin-with-multiple-remote-jobs/ (last visited Aug. 26, 2021
[4] Carter, id.
[5] C.R.S. 8-13.3-405 (requiring each employee in the state to supplement each employee’s accrued paid sick leave to take at least eighty hours if the employee normally works forty or more hours a week).
[6] Under the HFWA employees, of companies with sixteen or more employees beginning January 1, 2021, earn at least one hour of paid sick leave for every thirty hours worked by the employee; except that an employee is not entitled under this section to earn or use more than forty-eight hours of paid sick leave each year. C.R.S. 8-13.3-403 (b) and (c)(2)(a).