Fired for Side Business: Four Questions to Ask.
You can be fired for side business activity when it competes, uses their time, uses their things or touches their customers. Those four questions come from real dismissal cases. If any answer is yes, that sale is not the one this chapter asks for.
Two cases where the employee lost.
In South Africa, a meat producer's sales representative ran a dried meat business on the side. The Labour Appeal Court upheld his dismissal, because employees must disclose outside interests. Also, a British college lecturer did commercial work on college time. The tribunal called it systematic dishonesty, so the dismissal was fair.
When the employer loses instead.
Moonlighting dismissal cases cut both ways. A bank employee running a cake business won twenty-two thousand pounds for constructive and unfair dismissal. Another employer lost because suspicion is not proof. Also, a car dealership manager reselling discounted mats online won his tribunal. So is moonlighting legal in your own situation, with your employer? The cases turn on the facts.
How to avoid being fired for side business work.
Read across those cases, and the line resolves into four questions. Does it compete with them, run on their time, use their things, or touch their customers? Then add a fifth that is not legal at all. Could you explain it to your manager on Monday without your voice changing?
Run the fired for side business check tonight.
Write your planned sale on one line, then answer the four questions with yes or no.
Picture your manager finding out on Monday, and say your explanation out loud.
From the book.
In South Africa a sales representative for a meat producer was running his own business selling dried meat products on the side. He was dismissed, and the Labour Appeal Court upheld it, holding that employees owe a duty of good faith and have to disclose outside interests. Directly competing, and undisclosed, which is the worst two boxes you can tick ticked at once.
I Want to Start a Business but I Can't Quit My Job, chapter 12: One stranger, one payment, while you still have the job
Questions about fired for side business.
Can I be fired for side business work that competes?
In South Africa, a court upheld such a dismissal, because the business competed directly and was undisclosed.
Does an employer need proof?
Yes. One employer sacked someone it suspected of moonlighting and lost, because suspicion is not proof.
What is the fifth question?
Whether you could explain the sale to your manager on Monday morning without your voice changing.
Read the whole chapter.
This lesson covers one section of chapter 12, “One stranger, one payment, while you still have the job”. The book goes further, with the full evidence, the stories and every exercise.
Lessons in this chapter.
- 01 Building Credibility as a New Business: Own It.
- 02 First Sale to a Stranger: The Six Conditions.
- 03 Is One Sale Enough Validation: What It Proves.
- 04 Employee Duty of Loyalty: Prepare, Don't Solicit.
- 05 Fired for Side Business: Four Questions to Ask.
- 06 Turn a Hobby Into a Business: The Knitter's Runway.
- 07 How Long to Get First Sale: Six to Eleven Months.
- 08 No Sales for My Business: What Each Result Means.