Outside Employment:

Some employers explicitly prohibit additional employment. They might require new hires to agree, as a condition of employment, that any outside employment, whether or not it’s related to the profession, must be reported and sometimes even approved by the employer. In the absence of a stated company policy, you are expected to provide your best effort in return for your salary and benefits, and outside activities that interfere with that should be avoided. If the outside work is related to your primary job, you run the risk of competing with your employer.

Case Study: A chemical engineer, hired by a manufacturer, signed over to his employer the rights to any inventions. While fishing one weekend, he developed a patentable fishing lure. Even though this extra-professional activity was unrelated his employer’s core business, he informed his employer of his wish to patent and market his invention. In this case, the employer provided a written disclaimer of ownership of the invention, allowing the engineer to proceed with his plans.

Was this formal communication necessary? In this case, the activity was not professional, nor was there any likelihood of competition with his principal employer. However, the engineer took the safer, more conservative path by informing his employer. Does an employer have any right to rule on your activities outside your employment? Generally, your evenings and weekends are considered your discretionary time, and your employer should not care what you do with this time as long as you report for work as expected and meet your assigned responsibilities. The critical factor regarding outside employment, hobbies, or volunteer activities is not whether the activity produces extra income, but whether the amount of time devoted to the hobby affects what you owe your primary employer.