They weren’t meeting productivity requirements.

And how are you supposed to know that before hiring them?

You can't. But the op had already hired scammers, and they were not meeting the productivity requirements.

Or, you can try to guesstimate that by checking with previous employers. Which was the OP's point I guess, or alternatively the OP's point was "I give my employees a 40 hours/week contract, so they can't really have another job (and still perform adequately, or simply they can't depending on the law of the country)"

Huh?

This entire thread is about pre-screening job applicants so you know before hiring them that they're working multiple W2 jobs so you don't get "scammed" and accidentally hire somebody who is already working multiple full time jobs. But, it's not a scam unless they're not meeting productivity requirements. How do you know the person you're going to hire is not going to meet those productivity requirements before hiring them?

The sub thread you are replying to was from someone with specific anecdotes where people whom they had hired were not meeting performance goals and it turns out were working for multiple companies.

The relevance here is many managers have experience with employees who seemed fine in interviews and barely met performance bars (or just flat out didn’t) despite working just one job.

It’s well within their legal rights (and a useful heuristic!) to not hire someone because they’re not comfortable rolling the dice on a candidate being able to meet performance criteria because they’re working multiple jobs. Because working multiple jobs is a lot harder than working one job on pretty much any metric one can think of, and is not a protected class or status.

They’ll also reap any blowback or rewards from doing so, including difficulty finding candidates, or not.

It's also well within their legal rights to not hire somebody because the hiring manager doesn't like people who wear plaid. Not such a useful heuristic.

It depends entirely on the industry and job of course. Managers (and owners) prosper or not based on a number of factors, one being their ability to hire and retain employees that bring value to the company in excess of their costs.

A manager considering it for something like a software dev position would just be hurting themselves, though likely only a little as I doubt ‘candidate wears plaid’ comes up often.

If it was someone hiring for a fashion designer position, or a public facing spokesperson position, plaid could be a huge plus or a huge minus (I’m guessing huge minus as of right now for most), and what the candidate wears and how the they present themselves relative to current fashions and norms is a huge and important element that the hiring manager would be incompetent to not consider.

That said, there are plenty of managers who are pretty incompetent.

> How do you know the person you're going to hire is not going to meet those productivity requirements before hiring them?

You don't. But you never know that for sure. The whole interview process is just gathering data to make an estimate about whether or not the person will successfully perform in the role. Them having another job would be almost the strongest indicator I could imagine that they will not be successful.

> Them having another job would be almost the strongest indicator I could imagine that they will not be successful.

As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, many people successfully work multiple jobs.

Firstly I'd imagine there's actually a minuscule number of people who actually do that successfully. But even so, the fact that some can pull it off doesn't mean that it's not a very strong indicator toward poor performance.

Do note that in Europe these have been (severely depending on where you exactly live) restricted. In my case for instance you need an objective reason to limit someone from having other employment which is quite restrictive in what you can limit as an employer. There is no case law yet (as it's very recent) so we will see what happens in practice.

How are benefits impacted when an employee’s hours are reduced? - https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/hr-...

> Most benefits plans will detail the eligibility requirements to participate in the plan, including employee classification (full-time, part-time, regular, temporary, etc.) and/or numbers of hours worked per week or month. Once these classifications change for a covered employee, his or her eligibility will need to be reassessed.

> Short-term, temporary changes usually will not change an employee classification. For example, if a full-time employee goes on vacation for three weeks, most employers would not change the employee's full-time status. However, if an employee reduces his or her hours during the school year to accommodate his or her class schedule, employers may want to reclassify the employee to part time due to the length of the arrangement. It boils down to how the employer defines the classifications and how they are used in the eligibility requirements of each plan.

---

Without getting to an attempt to measure productivity...

The nightmare scenario for HR in this situation is to have someone who is a full time worker and getting full time benefits is found to be splitting their time between two or more companies in a way practically means that they couldn't be working the necessary number of hours to be eligible for benefits at the company.

Having an insurance company or similar decides that your employee isn't eligible for the benefits that you claim they are and ask for an audit of employee time now and going forward, this gets into the "this is gonna suck" category.

There are also issues of IP assignment where one (or both) companies make claims to the inventions that were produced "during work hours" at the other company.

> you have no right to care

An employee lying on their W-4 about having multiple jobs can create a lot of legal and bureaucratic overhead.

Where is the lie?

Most full-time contracts have exactly that clause, you can safely assume that theirs did.

That employee also likely assigned all IP they created during work hours to two companies.

Not in my experience. I've worked one salaried job for over a decade alongside other salaried jobs. I let my employers know (and ensure them my long-standing job won't affect my other one), and also checked the contracts to be sure I'm all good.

obviously no one has issues with this scenario where both employers know. but the recent overemployed scheme where you get multiple jobs, do nothing for months while taking advantage of remote & people understanding that it takes time to get started, then look for a new job once you get fired from one - that's clearly abusive & wrong

That's pretty surprising, maybe it varies by region? Are you in the US? Basically every full time contract I've ever seen has it. I'm currently writing a new one for a different company in a totally different field, using a default template, and the template has it too.

That's not to say that some employers wouldn't be OK with it, just that it tends to be thrown in by the lawyers because why not.

I only worked at one company that explicitly forbid me from being employed by another company.

There are plenty of reasons to care, off the top of my head 1) are they working for competitors 2) are they more likely to burnout or not stay in the role, 3) can you really trust them given their deception, etc

There's generally non-compete clauses in employment contracts in my experience. I think #2 is a valid concern. And #3 only is if they were deceitful, which isn't always the case when someone is working multiple jobs.

> There's generally non-compete clauses in employment contracts in my experience.

Non-competes are illegal or unenforceable in the following US states: California, North Dakota, the District of Columbia, Oklahoma, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Washington.

Also, if a company asks you to sign one, you can say no. I always do.

I don't think that is true in this context.

For example, in California, you can't ban someone from working for a competitor after leaving.

You absolutely can ban them from working at at a competitor at the same time.

> You absolutely can ban them from working at at a competitor at the same time.

How?

You write it in their contract or fire them when you find out.

California offers protection for "lawful conduct occurring during nonworking hours away from the employer's premises."

Note that it specifies "nonworking hours". There is also an exemption for working for a competitor.

https://www.mossbollinger.com/blog/2020/december/my-employer...

How does that "ban them from working at at[sic] a competitor at the same time"? So, you fire them. They'll still have the other job and can get another.

Im not sure what part you are confused by. Is it the word ban?

My employer can also ban me from stealing money or tools. If they discover it, they can legally fire me.

You stated that non-competes are illegal. This is incorrect in the context of concurrent employment and moonlighting with competitors. Those types of non-competes are completely legal.

I expect we will see a rise in the number of contracts that explicitly state no other employment during business hours.

> Non-competes are illegal or unenforceable in the following US states

Non-compete in this context means post-facto (forward-looking) non-competes.

Section 16600 of the California Business and Professions Code provides that "every contract by which anyone is restrained from engaging in a lawful profession, trade, or business of any kind is to that extent void."

California also provides an exemption if the second employment is during business hours of the first employer , or with a competitor

> Section 16600 of the California Business and Professions Code provides that "every contract by which anyone is restrained from engaging in a lawful profession, trade, or business of any kind is to that extent void."

That is the letter of the law, but that has not been the interpretation (re: a 2020 appellate ruling mentions this)

https://calawyers.org/business-law/california-appellate-cour...

I also happen to know that ND non-competes are enforceable in a limited fashion.

Non-competes in CA & CO are totally enforceable if:

1 - you are a manager.

2 - you are selling a company.

If you are a coder or regular employee, then no, the non-competes are not worth the paper they are printed on.

> The Jimmy John’s agreement prohibited employees during their employment and for two years afterward from working at any other business that sells “submarine, hero-type, deli-style, pita, and/or wrapped or rolled sandwiches” within 2 miles of any Jimmy John’s shop in the United States, according to Madigan’s lawsuit. An agreement in effect from 2007 to 2012 extended that to 3 miles.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-jimmyjohns-settlement/jim...

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/22/jimmy-johns-drops-non-compet...

They were being sued in IL & NY by the states' attorneys general over the issue.

Non-competes cannot be enforced against mere managers in California.

I think it falls under lying by omission. A company will want to know if you intend to hold another full time job. The applicant knows that, that's why they don't mention it. Avoiding multiply employed candidates risks unfair discrimination against the unicorn that can thrive in two roles - but companies already discriminate for more absurd reasons.