Overemployed and Polyworking: 6 Reasons HR Needs To Be Concerned

Overemployed and Polyworking: These aren’t just moonlighting trends.

They’re more like daylighting — remote employees working two (or more!) full-time jobs at the same time. Some call the trend Overemployed. Some call it Polyworking. Either way, it presents concerns and issues for HR and the companies you serve.

A Look at Overemployed and Polyworking

“Employers should be eyes-wide-open about the trends,” says Jo McRell, an employee experience consultant and author of Making Work Work for You. “Whether it’s financial anxiety, lack of motivation or something else, employees who are spreading themselves across multiple jobs are not likely to give their best to their employer.”

Another way to see it, “It can erode productivity and communication, damage team dynamics, and open the door to serious compliance risks,” says Jennifer Barnes, CEO of Optima Office. “An employee dividing their time between two roles often means they can’t give their best to either. This can lead to missed deadlines, inconsistent quality and frustrated co-workers.”

Dangers in the Trends

Despite these dangers, there are entire websites — not just a subreddit — devoted to working more than one full-time job at the same time. (And you’ll see an entire confession of an Overemployed, Polyworker toward the end of this story!)

“This is the new reality, not a temporary blip or a corner case. There are multiple reasons employees choose multiple jobs, but by far the No. 1 is money,” says McRell. “Millennials and especially Gen Zers are facing bigger debt ratios — think student loans, cost of housing — than previous generations and there’s a lot of financial anxiety among younger workers.”

Barnes agrees: “Holding down multiple jobs might look like a fast track to higher earnings, but it can backfire. Burnout, chronic stress and poor performance are almost inevitable when you’re splitting focus between two employers. That can lead to job loss from one or both positions, and in some cases legal trouble if a non-compete or confidentiality agreement is breached. Employees may also find their reputation damaged if they’re seen as unreliable or distracted. In the long run, overextending yourself for short-term gain often costs far more than it delivers

Legal, Ethical, Cultural Implications for HR

There’s a possibility someone is Overemployed or Polyworking at your company right now. And that means there are likely legal, ethical and cultural implications.

To that, we also talked with HRMorning’s employment law expert, Attorney Tom D’Agostino.

Here’s what HR needs to be concerned about.

• Trade secrets and confidential information. “It’s safe to assume that in many cases, Overemployed workers are doing the same type of work for multiple employers. This certainly increases the risk that confidential information will be exposed. An employment policy should stress your prohibition on the sharing of confidential information or trade secrets, including in cases involving outside employment,” says D’Agostino.
• State law limitations. “The extent to which an employer can limit outside employment depends in large part on state law,” D’Agostino says. “Recently, the NLRB’s general counsel pushed for the adoption of a rule that says employers can’t prevent employees from accepting outside employment. For now, though, it’s a matter of looking at what individual state laws permit. It’s safe for employers to get assurances from their employees that outside employment won’t adversely affect the work they’re doing for you.” So, if you’re concerned, talk with your in-house or third-party employment law experts.
• Conflict of Interest. “If the second job is in the same industry, there’s also a heightened risk of conflicts of interest or confidential information being leaked,” says Barnes. “Employers should not assume this is rare — it’s on the rise — and they need strong moonlighting policies, required disclosure of outside work, and clear expectations about availability, performance, and confidentiality.”
• Technology. Employees who are Overemployed or Polyworking handle a lot of technology — yours and others. You don’t want to get tangled or compromised because an employee is overextended and possibly careless. “Make sure the Compliance, IT and HR teams are working together to check that company devices are being used as intended and have an agreed-upon path for follow-up as needed for violations,” says McRell.
• Culture. While money is almost always the No. 1 reason behind overemployment, some employees test the water because they aren’t fulfilled or satisfied in their current role. So McRell suggests you, “focus on creating an employee experience that attracts and retains employees by ensuring equitable, competitive pay. Offer modern benefits in line with employee needs. And offer employees development opportunities.” And you might avoid an Overemployed situation altogether.
• Acceptance. Even if you don’t have employees who are Overemployed or Polyworking, you likely will always have some who moonlight. So it might be time to “have open, honest conversations with your employees. Eliminating all moonlighting is likely not possible. Instead, focus on setting reasonable boundaries, organizing for those, and communicating openly and clearly with employees about them,” says McRell.

Confessions of an Overemployed Polyworker

Now, a real-life story of an Overemployed Polyworker who is near and dear to my heart. As you might imagine, I need to keep the identity of my friend a secret. So we’ll call him Jared: He’s a millennial.

“For what I want to do in my life, I wasn’t making enough money to do it. Namely, I want to buy a house,” he told me.

In early 2022, when his original job became fully remote, he took a part-time job at a retail store. “But I was killing myself after-hours and working weekends to make, what, a few thousand extra dollars? I wasn’t buying a house on that.”

So about the same time he dreamed of home ownership, he came across the Overemployed subreddit. “It just made sense,” Jared said.

A bunch of resumes and few interviews later, he took the second full-time remote job. In that, he found out a co-worker was taking classes online during normal work hours. So he was “honest with the guy about what I was doing, and we worked out a way to juggle all the work between us.”

Not long after, a headhunter found him, inviting him to apply for a third job. That panned out, and he thought he could make three work.

How’s that possible? Some of his tricks include earbuds in both ears, each connected to separate computers when two meetings are at the same time. No video for either, of course. He sometimes works a little on weekends to get projects done, then puts them in a queue to be delivered on the real day they’re due. All in all, he’s still only on the computer 40 hours a week.

So, how does he handle it all? He said he’s not overwhelmed, stressed or annoyed. He did admit he questioned the morality of it, but “the way companies treat people, and with the economy, I figure that as long as I’m getting my work done, and what I do doesn’t affect other people’s workloads, then no harm, no foul.”

To keep his secret (for now), Jared took down his LinkedIn profile, and if questioned, will blame that on being hacked. He gave one company his brother’s photo for the team page on its website. When he goes to events for one company — and takes PTO from the other two — he asks not to be photographed, claiming he’s self-conscious about some recent weight gain.

And that’s where his girlfriend said the pressure point is: the lying. He has to lie to everyone all the time, it seems, she told me.

Still, Jared says he holds some standards: “I wouldn’t work for competitors. That’s not right.” Instead, he works in three different industries, each company a different size and in different locations.

While I won’t share what he’s making from three salaries — it’s a lot for someone at his age and with his experience — I’ll say he’s moving quickly toward his goals. After six months, he has an extra $6,000 in the new house account, an extra $3,500 shaved off his student loans and an extra $2,000 paid on his vehicle loan.