Workers with Side Hustles Are an Asset to your Business

September 29, 2016 Anthony Balderrama

As a human resources professional or a manager within your company, it can be very easy to be skeptical of employees who have jobs outside of their full-time positions at your office. You might think: What are their motivations? Are they not satisfied working here? What if they like their other job better?

Rest assured, 71 percent of workers with a side gig say they do not want it to replace their full-time position, according to a new CareerBuilder survey.

Workers taking side jobs are exactly who you would expect

While only 29 percent of employees have a side hustle, this trend is most common in the younger generation of workers. Thirty-nine percent of those ages 18-24 and 44 percent of those 25-34 have side gigs.

Shift-based occupations are significantly more likely to welcome employees to find or create side hustles. Broken down by industry, leisure and hospitality (34 percent), retail (33 percent) and transportation (32 percent) workers are most likely to have a side gig.

Those workers who may be less financially well-off are also more likely to have a job on the side. More than a third of workers (34 percent) making under $50,000 and 34 percent earning below $35,000 have jobs to supplement their full-time employment with extra money, or a labor of passion.

Why are these workers an asset?

As long as an employee’s side job doesn’t conflict with your business, an entrepreneurial spirit in that employee can be a recipe for success. CareerBuilder’s chief human resources officer, Rosemary Haefner, recommends hiring workers who pursue opportunities outside of office hours because as entrepreneurs, these employees:

  1. Gain skills off the clock: Building a business in their spare time gives them real-world experience to help in their full-time day-to-day. There’s no better way to learn than hands-on.
  2. Have winning personalities: Who doesn’t want innovative, proactive team members and self-starters working to achieve your organizational goals?
  3. Have a boost in creativity: Entrepreneurial employees thrive when handed something to create. At its core, entrepreneurship is about creating something — taking ideas and making them come to life.

 

See more statistics from this survey and learn what type of jobs are most common for workers with a side hustle.

 

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