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.
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.
All your brains belongs to me. Now get back to work you lazy sod!
There now don’t you feel super motivated? I think the reason side projects are fine is you have to focus on the value of an engineer. If you are seeing value how time is being used doesn’t matter. It’s when you are not seeing value generated that you need to start worrying about time management. But before that make sure you have full visibility into what activities are taking place. Maybe there is value being generated you just didn’t notice. As manager an important role is to provide visibility into each engineers work/value.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?"
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
Doesn't always work like that. The non-compete and conflict of interest clauses are narrower than that. In case of Amazon, they sell pretty much everything, to everyone, so you might have a conflict of interest. But if you start an e-commerce store that sell something very specific to very specific market segment than you may not have a conflict. For example, B2B marketplace for oil supply chain industry (Know a guy who does something similar).
Same thing with consulting, a friend works for a consulting company that closes 1M+ projects. He on side make websites for small businesses. Everyone knows at his company, no issues so far.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
We at 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There now don’t you feel super motivated? I think the reason side projects are fine is you have to focus on the value of an engineer. If you are seeing value how time is being used doesn’t matter. It’s when you are not seeing value generated that you need to start worrying about time management. But before that make sure you have full visibility into what activities are taking place. Maybe there is value being generated you just didn’t notice. As manager an important role is to provide visibility into each engineers work/value.
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.
In any case, genius idea!
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.
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.
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-...
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."
Only morons let people steal their labor.
Only morons steal labor.
Labor stealing requires morons.
Society has a long history of being moronic. It is what it is. Moronic.
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.
Same thing with consulting, a friend works for a consulting company that closes 1M+ projects. He on side make websites for small businesses. Everyone knows at his company, no issues so far.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And anytime I made exception to this rule, I always regretted it.
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.
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.