Ask HN: Should you allow your employees to work on side projects? - tifa2up
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mindcrime
Allow?? What makes you think you have any say in the matter?

As far as I'm concerned, my employer doesn't own my brain 24x7x365, and they
damn sure aren't paying me to be "on the clock" 24x7x365. So long as I'm not
using their time, equipment, trade secrets, etc., I will work on side
projects.

~~~
malux85
As an employer (Founder and developer) I 100% agree with you. I actively
encourage employee discussions about side projects and I love seeing my staff
work on them and grow on a personal level.

I despise companies that try and own all of your creations outside work hours,
and I feel like this shows clearly that the company sees the employee as an
object to exploit rather than a person with a desire to grow.

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noratrace
ProTip™, when you join a company and are required to declare previous
IP/inventions, list a bunch of made up side projects with vague/semi-scoped
descriptions.

Then when you complete a side project you just pick a name from your prior
inventions.

Worked for me, I launched 3 businesses while fully employed and have zero risk
of having them taken from me.

~~~
adtac
Would someone be in trouble for saying they changed the name of the project
half way through? This would allow me to choose any name instead of just the
ones I had come up with earlier.

In any case, genius idea!

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zaptheimpaler
I hope you mean during work hours - that is debatable and depends on how much
you trust them to make useful things.

Outside of work, you do not own them, they are people not property. Making ANY
claims on their time, energy or IP produced outside of work is despicable if
you ask me. An employer who did that would be signaling that they view
employees as property, would likely treat them poorly or like children, and I
would never work for them.

~~~
finaliteration
Agreed. However, you should NEVER use company equipment or resources for side
jobs/projects unless you’ve been explicitly given the OK in writing to do so.
A lot of employers have it written into agreements/contracts that they own any
work done using their stuff. It seems like it should be common sense, but I
know a number of people who do side gigs using their laptops from their full-
time jobs, and I feel like that’s just a disaster waiting to happen if the
employer ever finds out.

~~~
hluska
That is some excellent advice. Thanks for mentioning this!

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lovelearning
Yes, not just "allow", I would actually _encourage_ them. I don't manage
people, but have been in tech lead roles. I encouraged co-workers and
reportees to experiment and learn things outside of what was required for
employer's work.

IMO, side projects always help expand technical skills. They usually also
drive people towards improving their social or communication skills. An
employee whose feelings of freedom and autonomy have been encouraged by a
company is usually a happier productive employee. It also brings second order
benefits for the employer - such an employee is more likely to describe the
employer as providing work satisfaction and recommending them in their social
circles.

I have experienced both types of employers - the open-minded ones, as well as
the paranoid/narcissistic/control freak types. I have good things to say only
about the former.

Just adding a productivity/work satisfaction angle here, because most answers
so far seemed to be from the perspective of legality.

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jobigoud
All the comments so far are stating how obvious it is that they can't claim
anything about what you do in your free time.

It is not so clear cut, at least in the US. See Joel Spolsky famous answer to
"If I'm working at a company, do they have intellectual property rights to the
stuff I do in my spare time?"

[http://www.brightjourney.com/q/working-company-
intellectual-...](http://www.brightjourney.com/q/working-company-intellectual-
property-rights-stuff-spare-time)

~~~
muzani
It's not as clear cut in places like Japan too, where being part of a company
can actually be like part of a family. Your identity can become entwined with
the company. They will treat you well but also expect you to devote yourself
to them.

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shoo
I'll assume the question regards employees working on side projects outside of
the hours that they are doing paid work for their employer.

I think it is reasonable for employers to require:

\- the employer owns any intellectual property generated by the employee
during the course of the employee's duties (i.e. paid employment)

\- that employees disclose any real or potential conflicts of interest with
their employer's business

\- (possibly, subject to negotiation) that the employee may be placed under
non-compete restrictions during the time they work for and after they leave
the company, provided the employee is appropriately compensated for the
opportunity cost (e.g. a paid period of "gardening leave" if they are
prevented from working in the industry for 12 months)

I don't think it is reasonable for an employer to own intellectual property
generated by the employee outside the course of their duties, or have any say
in what other business activities an employee may have, or whatever else an
employee does in the rest of their life outside the $dayjob.

Personally, as I've gained experience working as a permanent employee and
working as a contractor, I simply won't sign any employment agreement that
constrains what I can do in my time outside of work. Sometimes prospective
employers opportunistically sneak such clauses into employment contracts, but
are then happy to strike out such clauses, if they are not, there's plenty of
opportunities for well-paying contract work without such restrictions, so I'll
look for something else.

That said, part of this is simply about relative power of the employer and
employees. If employees don't have a range of alternative options for work, or
are not unionised, and don't live in a polity where these aspects of
employment contracts are regulated, then it is possible than employers may
offer relatively unfair employment contracts, which some potential employees
will still sign if they don't feel they have an alternative.

Thucydides -- "the strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must."

------
orf
You don't have a choice in the matter, and even posing of the question is
troubling.

~~~
crack-the-code
Not necessarily, many large companies are willing to guide and help an
employee determine if something is okay or not to work on. You shouldn't be
discouraged for posing the question, and if you are, the employer is not being
rational.

~~~
orf
The only case where it might even be a question is if you're directly taking
what you are working on during your day job and putting it into a side
project, aka stealing their IP.

Other than that, no, your time is your time and unless they are paying you
then they have no say as to what you work on no more than they have a say in
what you eat for dinner.

~~~
crack-the-code
I disagree with your first sentence. Say that you work for Amazon, and you
start an e-commerce side project that directly impacts the growth of
e-commerce outside of the Amazon marketplace. It may be a negligible share of
the market, but you are still negatively impacting Amazon's sales. There is a
reason that they put conflict of interest in the fine print, and posing the
question helps bring more context.

~~~
meiraleal
> but you are still negatively impacting Amazon's sales

It is not the responsibility of a single employee. Even more in a market so
ubiquitous as "ecommerce".

The same way, Amazon (and other tech companies) impacts negatively the careers
of its employees when it change platforms, frameworks, technologies or do a
layoff.

~~~
crack-the-code
Why should a company hire someone who is potentially going to impact their own
revenue? And in rarer cases, a side project that actually generates enough
revenue to where the amount of money they are paying you is less than the
share you are taking from their revenue.

To your second point, sure, employers hold more power. What is wrong with
that? If you don't like it, you can always work somewhere else.

~~~
meiraleal
> Why should a company hire someone who is potentially going to impact their
> own revenue?

Because every software engineer can impact their own revenue the same way.

> To your second point, sure, employers hold more power. What is wrong with
> that? If you don't like it, you can always work somewhere else.

Don't liking it, I'm supporting my peers in HN that it is not unethical to
have a side project and use it as a leverage to not be subject to the humor of
your boss. It is also good for the company, as desperate people aren't
creative.

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BlackLink16
Outside of work hours and following any non-compete clauses in the contract, I
would say companies shouldn't own ideas generate/worked on outside your day
job hours. I know this is not common with many companies in the North American
workplace though. I personally had a contract which had a total ownership
clause offered to me. I got lucky when discussing the general idea of it with
an ex-coworker, who got me a full-time contract at a second company with no
such clause. I much preferred the second place anyways, as I had done some
work with them through university.

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JunaidBhai
We at [http://draftss.com](http://draftss.com) strongly motivate our employees
to indulge in side-projects. We have a strong team of expert graphic
designers, developers, project managers, sales and marketing.

Right from the interviewing candidates, we prefer people who have come with a
background of projects/startups created by candidates.

Based on past experiences, this has led the employees to come up with out of
the box concepts that help in optimizing our existing services.

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crack-the-code
As long as the side projects are in no way considered a conflict of interest,
I think it should be acceptable. It is sometimes difficult to determine
whether or not something is a conflict of interest. The other thing to be
careful of is making sure that the additional side project(s) are not burning
out the employee, or occasionally eating into their actual time at work.

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sfkjlkfagfj
I pretty much never hire anyone who doesn't have a side project. I don't care
if it is super shitty php code, as long as you are coding outside of work, I
know you will be a good programmer.

And anytime I made exception to this rule, I always regretted it.

~~~
whatsstolat
I have lots of ex side projects, but family commitments means they are not
maintained. How does that fly with you?

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muzani
Alternate perspective - if I offer significant company shares to an engineer,
I'd expect them to devote quite a lot of mental energy to the company

The reasoning is that a lot of the biggest breakthroughs happen with "ambient
thought". It's the stuff you figure out while in the shower or while mowing
the lawn.

If they're getting a 30% share or more, it's like a marriage. You can
fantasize about side projects, but not devote significant effort chasing them.
If you want to be doing side projects, you should be taking a lower cut and
higher salary.

If it's around 10%-30%, you'd be expected to be at full energy overtime and
put all side projects aside when needed. Side projects are okay as long as
they don't get in the way.

At about 1%-10%, you could probably do one, but you'd be better off focusing
on your job related project. It's probably a part of expectations too.

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regularfry
I would not work for an employer that tried to limit my non-work activities.

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mabynogy
Yes and you should give them time inside the office hours to work on their
side projects even it's totally unrelated to your activity. They'll feel
better and will be more productive.

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billconan
I would allow employees to work on side projects.

~~~
natch
You sound like you're on the right side of this, but important point: it's not
up to you to allow them. You don't "allow" people rights they naturally have.

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viraptor
I don't believe you can legally prevent that. There may be some clause about
total ownership of work, but I'm not sure that's been tried before.

~~~
cimmanom
If you’re referring to total ownership, it’s absolutely been tried. It’s
boilerplate in some standard contracts. I crossed it out of the contract when
onboarding at my current employer (thankfully, they didn’t object at all to
rewriting it to cover only work done during work hours or using company
resources, which is perfectly reasonable).

I think the idea behind total ownership is that if, say, you’re a chemist
researching temporary adhesives based on petroleum, and you’re in the shower
one day when your team’s petroleum research suddenly inspires an idea about a
temporary adhesive based on latex, they don’t want you going out and either
selling that idea to a competitor or starting your own company. And they might
have a case.

In general, side projects closely related to your employer’s line of business
are a recipe for trouble anyway, and I don’t recommend it even if your
contract is permissive about IP.

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jimmystix2
Of course. But, many employees should check the contract they sign. Many
companies claim work at and outside of work.

