How to Find out if your Employee is Moonlighting?

Moonlighting has become a popular term for business leaders in almost every industry. While some employers express a mere objection to their employees having an additional source of income, for others it is a matter of concern. This is because moonlighting employees can have a negative impact on business performance. The effect of this practice on businesses is noticeable through signs like decreased productivity, reduced revenue, the need for frequent talent mobility, and much more.

In order to prevent moonlighting from affecting the company's bottom line, employers must identify employees involved in such practices. Fortunately, there are easy ways to trace such individuals within the organisation.

Identifying Moonlighting Employees

Precisely, moonlighting is the term for employees who work with two or more organisations at a time. This means that the worker is associated with one company as a full-time employee and has another source of employment; either full-time or part-time. Here are the signs to notice:

Lack of enthusiasm for work- It has often been observed that employees involved in working with multiple organisations show less interest and enthusiasm. They might frequently avoid being a part of fun and engaging activities. Such employees also deny taking on any new job responsibilities. As a result, they start putting in the least amount of effort for the mere purpose of finishing the task.

Less workplace engagement- Engagement at offices plays a crucial role in enhancing the overall productivity and performance of the business. Though lack of employee engagement can be due to a variety of reasons, such as poor culture, work policies, team conflicts, etc., moonlighting is also a potential cause. Managers can keep track of employee engagement in their companies with the help of an employee engagement platform. It allows leaders to improve the workforce experience and transform business performance.

Reduced quality of work- It is well understood that not every employee is good at multitasking, especially when it comes to fulfilling roles in two different organisations. This ultimately results in the degradation of the quality of their work, which impacts the company’s productivity and performance.

How to Deal with Moonlighting?

To address the issue of moonlighting in the workplace, it is important to first understand its root causes. There are plenty of reasons why employees choose to work with two different organisations. This may include:

Lack of workplace engagement- Driving engagement with the teams is as crucial as bringing top talents into the organisation. Disengaged employees lose motivation to put in extra effort to meet performance expectations. This, as a result, causes employees to seek another work opportunity.

Misalignment of goals-When organizational goals aren’t properly aligned with the individual goals of team members, businesses often suffer from conditions like moonlighting. They fail to utilise the skills and talent of their workforce productively and end up losing the dedication to the work of their top performers. A goal setting software can help in achieving long term strategic goals.

Low compensation- It goes without saying that if an employee feels like he or she is underpaid in their current organisation, they will be looking for other opportunities to support their finances.

Absence of recognition- Despite their best efforts and hard work, if employees don’t receive enough appreciation and recognition, it is quite possible they will want to engage in moonlighting.

Insufficient growth and development opportunities- As a part of professional growth and development, employees expect their companies to invest in helping them learn and grow. Organisations that overlook this aspect might notice degraded work quality among their employees.

Once the exact cause is identified, business leaders can work on these factors to prevent their employees from turning to an additional source of employment. Revisiting the company’s compensation structure, improvising workplace policies, and providing growth opportunities are some of the reliable measures to avert the conditions of moonlighting.

To wrap up…

As the corporate sector is evolving and the need for talent is increasing, grabbing multiple career opportunities becomes less challenging, making moonlighting more prevalent in organisations. It affects businesses in unfavourable ways, which can be concerning for employers.

Having open communication with employees can help business leaders understand why employees choose to engage in such practices. Majorly, managing factors like engagement, training and development opportunities, reward and recognition, and constructive feedback need extra attention to ensure a better employee experience. Managers streamline these parameters by using an employee engagement tool like entomothat provides automated insights to keep organisational health and performance in check.

entomo is a people experience platform built for the digital world of work. Powering 30mn+ users and workplaces world-wide, entomo enables workforce experiences that transform performance, engagement and talent development using hyper personalized insights and nudges. entomo’s clients include Fortune 500 and other large enterprises, as well as forward thinking Governments who have embarked on enterprise, industry or national scale transformation initiatives. entomo is also voted as a leader in G2 software marketplace across multiple categories. To know more, visithttps://entomo.co/request-demo/