<p>I’ll keep this vague but I think you can get the point.</p>
<p>Worker A was hired by Company B when it got a contract to do work for Client C. Company B found ClientC impossible to work with and dropped the contract but kept Worker A.
A year passes and Company D now has the Client C contract. They contact Worker A and ask if they would be willing to work a few hours here and there with them on the Client C contract. Worker A needs the $$ and can easily do the work required.</p>
<p>Does Worker A need to tell Company B about this?</p>
<p>The short answer is “Probably not” IMHO. And now for the caveat. The risk/reward quotient here is very high, the risk being that your primary employer discharges you for doing unapproved outside work. Some companies have explicit policies prohibiting it. So I’d be inclined to present this situation to Company B. I think Company B actually benefits from you helping out an ex-client, but managers can be very sensitive on certain issues. Just make sure this isn’t one of them.</p>
<p>When our company got bought out in the 1990s, they had clauses for non-compete, no working for vendors or customers. We’re a big company so it can be hard to tell if a company does business with another company. I did part-time contracting work for this company as more or less of a favor. They only needed a week of work a year and it was much easier to just contract someone familiar with their code base than to hire someone fulltime.</p>
<p>I received the appropriate approvals and everything was fine. I found someone else to take over the customer a few years later when I really didn’t want to do the work anymore (they were about 50 miles away and only had dialup access).</p>
<p>If Company D is a competitor, then I wouldn’t touch the work. I would be risking my main job and could open myself up to lawsuits over any intellectual property that I inadvertently used for Client C. Things could get very messy if Company B ever tried to win Company C’s business again. I would try to do things in an above-board way - say getting Company D to subcontract the business to Company B. I don’t feel that it is risking job and industry reputation for a part-time contract.</p>
<p>If you do decide to go through with it, make sure that you scour your employee agreement for anything remotely prohibiting this.</p>
Does Worker A even have an employment agreement? Most employees are “at-will”, which means they can be fired for any reason not specifically prohibited by law, or for no reason.</p>
<p>My advice is to clear it with Company B. Otherwise, based only on what you said, if I were a manager at Company B, Worker A would be gone. There is too much potential for conflict of interest, revealing information that Company C gave to Company B in confidence and for whatever reason may not want to reveal to Company D, etc. And it wouldn’t matter that in fact there may have been no conflict, no revealing information, etc. The appearance or the potential for impropriety would be sufficient for me to fire Worker A.</p>
<p>billsbillsbills, you understand that there’s a problem here, or you wouldn’t have had to post the question. Is the work for Company C worth risking Worker A’s job over?</p>
<p>“Does Worker A even have an employment agreement?”</p>
<p>I wrote: “employee agreement” - these things are often one-sided.</p>
<p>“Most employees are “at-will”, which means they can be fired for any reason not specifically prohibited by law, or for no reason.”</p>
<p>Big companies typically spell out behavior which can get you terminated. There’s a lot more required regular training on this thanks to harassment lawsuits in the 80s and 90s and Sarbanes-Oxley.</p>
<p>“My advice is to clear it with Company B.”</p>
<p>“My advice is to clear it with Company B. Otherwise, based only on what you said, if I were a manager at Company B, Worker A would be gone. There is too much potential for conflict of interest, revealing information that Company C gave to Company B in confidence and for whatever reason may not want to reveal to Company D, etc. And it wouldn’t matter that in fact there may have been no conflict, no revealing information, etc. The appearance or the potential for impropriety would be sufficient for me to fire Worker A.”</p>
<p>The problem with your advice is that the mere act of asking for permission could get you fired or add risk to your career. If you have so much time to do outside contracting work, maybe you’re not putting in enough effort at this job. I’ve seen employee handbooks that specifically mention this aspect for those considering a second job.</p>
<p>To clarify. Worker A does PLENTY of work at Company B. Above and beyond. This is work done occ. in the evening and weekends. Company B is a 40 person outfit in 2 offices in different parts of the country. No written employee contract or rules regarding this area. Company D is basically a 2 man operation that hires when they get contracts. There are no trade secrets involved. Basically it came down to Company B found Client C’s unwieldy processes and slow payment schedule to be not worth the aggravation. Company D is happy to get work, regardless of how long it takes to get paid as they will get paid eventually. It would be a very cold day in h*ll before Company B would get involved with Client C again.</p>
<p>I still wouldn’t do it and as a business owner if I owned company B I would get rid of an employee who was doing outside work unless it was cleared with me first.<br>
Either go work for Company D or set yourself up in your own company but otherwise it’s a no go IMHO.</p>
<p>In my organization we are required to have ANY outside work approved. One of the reasons for doing this is that your employer-provided medical insurance may not cover you if you are injured while working for Company D. (I have never heard this proved or disproved-but that is the argument.)</p>
<p>Your clarification doesn’t matter. If it’s so clear that it shouldn’t be a problem for Company B that Worker A does the work, then why not just clear it with Company B? Ah, because Worker A knows or believes that Company B might not be as sanguine about the situation as Worker A “thinks” it should be.</p>
<p>If it’s no problem, then there should be no problem letting Company B know. If you’re worried about Company B knowing, then there’s a problem.</p>
<p>There is not enough info here about the kind of work involved. If there are no trade secrets or intellectual property involved, it may not matter. I’m imagining work like repairing copying machines, or take care of plants.<br>
But I guess if you have to ask, you already know that your current employer may not like it. They certainly won’t fire you if you tell them, hey, I got a call from D and C asking me to do some free-lance work for them…but they may say, forget it.</p>
<p>I agree with what everyone here has said. If I were Worker A’s employer, I would not be happy if I later found out he was doing work for a competitor. If Worker A is concerned about this, s/he should definitely clear it beforehand.</p>
<p>In addition, if it’s only a few hours here and there, it’s not about the money.</p>
<p>If it’s about the professional connection s/he’d be making with Company D, well, Worker A will get points with Company D by explaining that s/he doesn’t think it’s legitimate for her/him to be doing freelance work for a competitor. </p>