Support your staff’s side projects

IT’S GOOD BUSINESS FOR YOU

If you’re an entrepreneur, you understand the desire to start something from scratch, become your own boss and build a brand one sale at a time. Your team members likely haven’t crossed the threshold into entrepreneurship yet, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have the desire to. Lots of startup employees have side hustles, whether it’s a Shopify store, a couple of freelance consulting clients or a business plan they hope to turn into their own success story. Instead of stifling the creativity within your ranks, here’s how to embrace employee side hustles — without compromising your own full-time hustle: Understand the fear behind side hustles At my first job there was a clause in my contract that said employees couldn’t take any paid work outside their full-time job, and lots of workplaces have similar stipulations. Often this is motivated by fear — first, fear that an employee will work on their side hustle during the day instead of doing their regular work, and therefore drop the ball on deliverables. But if you hire smart people and treat them like adults, they’ll get their work done regardless of whether they take a few minutes to check Facebook or send an email for their side hustle. The other fear is that an employee will leave to pursue their side hustle full-time. The truth is that employees will leave for a variety of reasons — to go back to school, to travel, to join another company. A lot of side hustles are never intended to be full-time jobs, and the ones that are would have the employee leaving whether you support them or not. Why not support them along the way, and help them take the leap you did when you started your company.

Make the workplace a place where side hustles are out in the open

If you run a small business, you likely have a team of very smart people with very diverse skill sets — many of whom likely have a side hustle, whether you know about it or not. They’re also great at something, but may have gaps in other areas. Highlighting the fact that your workplace supports employees’ other projects means your team can talk about them in the open and ask for help over lunch or after work. This can help to create a more supportive culture, and highlight opportunities for team members to collaborate. It can also be a recruiting tool — by promoting your team’s projects outside of work, you show that you’re a team that celebrates not just company wins, but individual team member wins. Be their first customer In startups, today’s napkin sketch could be tomorrow’s billion-dollar business. As an entrepreneur, you can respect the effort that goes into that first sale, so go beyond just supporting the fact that your team members have side hustles, and put your money (and time) where your mouth is. Be one of their early customers, promote it to your network, offer mentorship and advice, or simply ask how things are going with it. Your team members devote 40-plus hours a week to your business, so they’ll remember your early support if and when their company takes off.

There’s a lot of fear and hesitation around supporting side hustles, despite the fact that, in many cases, people with side projects are excellent at time management, and because they get exposure to running a business, they can understand the challenges you face daily. With Generation Z and Millennials launching more side hustles than ever, now is the time to think about how you can support them within your own ranks.