It’s fairly common in our industry to be approached or seek out freelance work while being fully employed. We’re strong believers in seeking out hobbies and brain puzzles that help you unplug from the day-to-day work here at Autotroph.
We subscribe to the thought this makes you a better-rounded person. Inevitably, skills or problems solved outside of work tend to trickle back benefiting your daily work at Autotroph.
With that in mind, it can be a delicate balance and we do want to make sure you don’t create conflicts of interest or affect your time, dedication, or performance at Autotroph.
Speaking candidly, here are some things we’re OK with and not OK. Of course, if you’re not sure, please ask!
What’s OK
- An occasional side gig, free or paid, for someone you know. For example, if you want to work on a friend’s website or a design or writing project for something you’re involved with, that’s fine.
- An occasional speaking gig, free or paid. Someone’s going to pay you to give a talk somewhere? That’s fine as long as it doesn’t involve multiple days off for travel (unless you use your own personal vacation time against this travel time).
- A side business that’s different from your day job, as long as the commitment is only a few hours a week. If you come to work exhausted because you’re trying to start a full-time business on the side, it’s going to impact your performance here.
- Serve as an advisor for another company, or be on a board, as long as there’s no conflict of interest. The time commitment must be under a few hours a month. And if there’s a scheduling conflict, Autotroph gets priority.
- Do volunteer or occasional pro-bono work for a cause you’re actively involved with. A little work here and there is fine, but, for example, becoming an organization’s full-time web designer and being on the hook to work during your standard workday, etc, would not be OK.
What’s not OK
- You can’t work full time or part-time for another company in our industry. If you’re unclear about what our industry is, and you have a specific situation you’d like to talk about, ping Wes or Jonathan
- Go out on a regular speaking circuit tour which is going to require multiple days of travel multiple times a year. That’s too disruptive to our own work schedule and to your fellow teammates.
- Consult for other companies in our industry where there may be a conflict of interest (a competitor, a product tangentially related to Autotroph, etc).
- Be aggressive in marketing your availability for side work. If something comes to you through a friend or some connection, fine, but aggressively promoting something on the side will ultimately result in a conflict of interest here at work.
- Take on anything outside of work that’ll pull attention from work. For example, if you wanted to launch an app, but the app requires providing timely customer support to people who use the app, that’s going to eat into your day here at work. That would ultimately be a problem.
In General
Here are a few guiding principles about whether something could be a problem:
- Is it competitive?
- Does it occupy a disproportionate amount of your time?
- Does it require you to be away during times when you’re needed at work?
- Is it another paid gig that employs the same skills Autotroph is paying you for?
In general, we’d like to be lenient within reason, but we’re going to be strict if we see it impact your time, attention, or performance here at work.
It’s hard to come up with one-size-fits-all rules. If you’re in doubt, please reach out to your Director. We’re always happy to spare a moment to give our thoughts on it before you make a commitment.