Private life any business of an employer?

[paulears]

This is a new one on me - talking to a fella who occasionally helps me out. He works a 9-5 job, PAYE, normal benefits and holidays for an events company - based in the main location. Occasionally he goes out to crew events when people are missing, on holiday etc and they pay him overtime for this work if it happens on weekday evenings or weekends. In his spare time he volunteers for one of the well known first aid organisations, mainly, I suspect, to listen to the music at festivals and events. He's done this for maybe 5 years, and he also sings in pubs with a guitar for what I think is pretty poor money - but he enjoys it, and of course it's just him so it's decent beer money if nothing else. Asking him about a couple of jobs I know might be available (which would be PAYE status) he mentioned he'd have to ask his boss. It seems his company want to know details of what he does out of work - so despite the first aid work being unpaid apart from occasional expenses, and the pub gigs very low paid, he has to seek permission to do them in advance. They want to know what hours he works, where they are and what he gets paid. I'm not sure they have the right to ask this. They say that they need to know if he has worked weekends because he could be too tired and dangerous on Monday morning. There could also be conflict of interest issues - which I can't quite see. Sure, he uses his small PA in the pubs, and his bosses own huge ones, but if he ever needs a day off it's taken as part of his holiday entitlement. My attitude is that after he finishes work, what he does is nothing to do with them, and while they usually give permission, my thoughts are that he shouldn't have to ask at all. His pub gigs and any PAYE work that I might get him similarly are nothing to do with them - in my opinion. His payroll people might get the occasional tax code change as a result, but again why somebodies tax code changes is not their business either.

 

Am I correct in my train of thought? I can see, sort of, potential safety issues, but I get the feeling that they're going a bit far with their nosiness and reporting policy. I don't know, and nor does he, never having read it, what his contract of employment says?

 

Is this rare or common?

[eamon]

Hi

 

 

I experienced this re-action/action from my employers a couple of years ago. It is a mixture of things as to why they may request this information. Somewhat depends on what is agreed in his contract and somewhat ensuring that the employee is fit and able for their PAYE work. It also depends on the relationship that he has with his boss.

One of their fears would be that he would be "tired" and not able to work properly (safety etc) during his normal week.

 

My place of employment introduced new contracts about 6 years ago with a eloquently compiled staff handbook that (suddenly) forbade any working outside of the main employment without express written permission at least two weeks in advance. If I worked without permission, I could be fired. Now the contract & handbook were straight out of the bin of HR company and were appalling compiled by the pen pushers. In the heel of the hunt, I (funnily) enough objected to the clause of working outside. I have freelanced since I have started with them and continue to do so. Some of my freelance is monetary gain, some enjoyment etc.

We had a to & fro about the issue in which they cited Working Time Directive, tiredness, H & S etc; I cited my life and none of their business what I do past 6pm etc. I came out on top due to it being a deal breaker when the main argument of WTD was nulled due to my status as self-employed for outside work. The WTD does not apply to self-employed and only to PAYE. In a way, common sense and a good relationship with management prevailed.

 

It is a balance but at the heart of it, the employee can/should do what ever they wish post 6pm. The employer can be justified in seeking that employee A is fit and able for work but IMO within reasonable grounds. Again depends on the contract and relationship with the employer. Both sides should apply common sense and as you have said his freelance work/life is not a direct competition to his main employment.

 

Personally, I would have a get stuffed approach about my personal life and my activities post work. You do not get paid enough for rules about your personal life out of work times but it can be a balance with reasonable queries from the employer. It would be understandable that they do not want him working a 20hr day and then coming into their work "fit & ready"

 

Eamon

[kerry davies]

If I were working self employed in the same sector as my day job I would expect questions. Especially if I were working full time and had agreed to be available for overtime and weekends. Outside work, or even his First Aid duty, impinges on availability and my employer has a right to know if there were any reason I could not completely fulfil my agreement with them.

 

The issue of fatigue is, at last, being taken seriously and if he is driving on the employer's behalf, if only to get himself to sites, then I would expect them to ask if he had just ended an all-nighter in Dundee before driving in. That might seem pedantic but I have had to send a whole LX crew home to sleep after they actually fell out of their truck with exhaustion at 5 am on arrival at site.

 

I never worked full time so didn't bother when I was PAYE but there must be some compromise over National Insurance contributions, I just let the PAYE payroll people take what they wanted and paid my S/E ones separately. That could mean the employer needed to know about income, tax and NIC paid outwith their payroll. I am not sure, maybe someone else is both self assessed and FTE PAYE?

 

We all sit round gossiping about gigs we have been on, jobs we have done and people we have worked with. In lots of industry that could be seen as disseminating information gained as part of our work. We often muddy the boundaries between FTE and SE but a mechanic in a VW dealership who borrows a torque wrench to do a paid job on a mate's Golf is going to get sacked. Bands and artistes have restrictions in their contracts as to where and when they can work within a certain time and distance. Is that an argument for our employers to seek restrictions? Dunno, discuss!

[timsabre]

I used to work for a railway company in signalling (back in the 1990's) and they brought in a policy like this because they classed the work as being safety critical, if you turned up knackered having been out doing a gig all night they were worried you could make a silly mistake which could lead to a serious incident on the railway.

 

There was a big argument with the unions about it and they eventually decided that they could not enforce such a policy, but section managers kept a very close eye on what people were doing out of work and words were had if people were turning up fatigued.

[sandall]

I don't know whether it was forbidden in my contract (probably), but for my last 12 years at the BBC I had a company name & paid S/E tax & NI. Mind you, in those days Personnel weren't in your face the way HR departments are now. One interesting rule they did enforce though was that if you invented anything, even in your own time & at your own expense, they could lay claim to it, paying you £25 for your trouble. The way some people got round this was to set up their own company first & then hire their widgets to individual production teams.

[bruce]

It may be related to working hours directive.

 

Employers have an obligation to ensure that employees are not required to work more than 48 hours in a week (on average), and there are similar laws relating to breaks between shifts.

 

Employees can, in some cases, opt out of this, but by default it applies.

 

If an employee is working for two employers, then each employer has a duty to take reasonable steps to ensure that the employee isn’t working more than the permitted hours. That means asking them how many hours they are doing with the other employer.

 

 

Or a completely different example. I once had an employee who was contracted to work from 6am-9am each day. It didn’t work out, because he was also freelancing in the events industry until 1am-2am most evenings, and most mornings he was either too tired to get out his bed for a 6am start, or half asleep on the job.

[Jivemaster]

There is the working time directive to consider, If he's working in a like industry then there is conflict of interest. All the time there is the consideration of fitness to perform duties if not rested.

[sunray]

I have been involved with PA since my childhood as a sideline to my BT job. BT had the same policy as the BBC as mentioned above, initially my father declared the income then I took that over when he passed.

 

When I left BT and looking for full time work, I peddled my CV around the agencies, which clearly showed my PT activities,  I did a couple of weeks work for an AV installation company (mostly corporate conferencing work) which extended to about 3 months then another similar stint a short time later then after another break they took me on FT.

 

For the opening ceremony of a private auditorium we had installed AV into, a lapel radiomic was required and I suggested my employer hired it from me at a lower price than their usual supplier.I thought the world was about to end when accusations of competition etc started flying and they even called their solicitor to sit in on a surprise interview where they tried to throw my contract in my face, I requested an interview with the agency present which happened the following day when the wording of my contract and CV were discussed in minute detail by: 2 directors, HR, secretary, solicitor, my supervisor, 2 from agency and me.

 

The final outcome was it was decided that my CV gave the written notice required in my contract and the paid £60 plus delivery and collection plus vat to hire a microphone for four days, I'd have probably charged £10.

[sunray]

What I forgot to include is: I think the employer has every justification to know what their staff get up to out of hours IF it is likely to affect their working time or a conflict of interest or affect their reputation etc. The last thing a company wants is a visit from the Police or other body, or gang warfare. I'm struggling to find the right words for this but I'm hoping I have conveyed the idea.

 

I knew of a case where an employee 'borrowed' some tools including conduit benders for a 'private job' and what came back happened to be security marked and stolen. I know this is a bit OT but it does show it is not as simple at being nosey.

[paulears]

With all the talk about rights and privacy - I find it a bit amusing everyone takes this so well. Are we condoning employers having some kind of right to know what their staff do in the hours outside of work? They have no right to find out their criminal record, or if they are a dodgy character, but they do have the right to know somebody does first aid as a hobby, or plays football on Saturdays when they could break their leg, or suffer an injury? We're OK with this? Seriously? Any activity an employee does in their own time that has any risk attached, or features strenuous activity is notifiable?

 

I am truly amazed. I've never seen contracts of employment where ownership of a member of staff, in case an urgent job comes in over the weekend is specified? The WTD is routinely trotted out and staff asked to sign to say they don't wish to be bound to it, so overtime can happen. Clearly conflict of interest IS important, but in most cases, apart from the fact that employees have skills which are useful, there is no conflict. Having to put every pub gig on a list is too big brother for me!

[gareth]

It *might* be their business - but there's definitely a line beyond which it definitely isn't!

 

If you're on a full-time contract with an employer, that employer could reasonably say that they didn't want you doing any part-time work outside of that contract which might bring a conflict of interest (working for a rival company, etc.). Neither would they want you to be doing work for another party which meant that you weren't able to give of your best when you were at your full-time job (perhaps because you'd been on an all-nighter get-out elsewhere the day before you start a big fit-up at 9am).

 

And of course there's the matter of being under the influence of drink or drugs when turning up for work - a bottle of vodka and a couple of feet of Colombia's finest export the night before a big day at work may well be something that they'd be within their rights to be concerned about!

 

But beyond that - what someone does in their own time should be bugger-all to do with their employer.

[djw1981]

With all the talk about rights and privacy - I find it a bit amusing everyone takes this so well. Are we condoning employers having some kind of right to know what their staff do in the hours outside of work? They have no right to find out their criminal record, or if they are a dodgy character, but they do have the right to know somebody does first aid as a hobby, or plays football on Saturdays when they could break their leg, or suffer an injury? We're OK with this? Seriously? Any activity an employee does in their own time that has any risk attached, or features strenuous activity is notifiable?

 

I am truly amazed. I've never seen contracts of employment where ownership of a member of staff, in case an urgent job comes in over the weekend is specified? The WTD is routinely trotted out and staff asked to sign to say they don't wish to be bound to it, so overtime can happen. Clearly conflict of interest IS important, but in most cases, apart from the fact that employees have skills which are useful, there is no conflict. Having to put every pub gig on a list is too big brother for me!

Those who don't want such interest or T&C tend to end up working for themselves IME.

[sunray]

They have no right to find out their criminal record, or if they are a dodgy character

I have worked in many situations where a Police check is mandatory and I think I can go as far as saying every prospective employer has asked the question, and I'd expect them to do so which is fine by me. Whether they ALL have a legal right to do so I don't know.

[Jivemaster]

Try working in the Health or Care sectors, or with children or the disabled without a CRB/DBS check, try working as a driver without your employer checking your licence with Swansea on a regular basis, they most certainly look out for points arriving on your licence that they didn't know about. Try presenting a degree certificate without someone contacting the university.

[paulears]

The DBD system is NOT a free for all with everyone entitled to access. In fact, gaining data illegally is quite serious. Plumbers and electricians often get mentioned - clearly having a stranger in your home means DBD checks on employees is fine? Not so at all. Children and vulnerable people is the keyword. On top of this, it's having unsupervised access. A DBS check for an electrician working in a school is NOT required unless they will be working alone with the kids. The DBS website makes it very clear that it is not a get out of jail ticket for anyone to have. An employer cannot just check out their staff just in case tomorrows work means you have to go into a childcare centre. Normal adults - typically elderly people are not normally 'vulnerable people'. A firm that checks it's employees without due cause can get a hefty fine. I suspect much of the problem is when it gets to the Police computer system, which is meant to be secure, unless good reason for it not to be.

 

This comes from the NACRO website.

The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (ROA) allows most convictions and all cautions, reprimands and final warnings to be considered spent after a certain period. This period – known as the rehabilitation period – is determined by the sentence or disposal given, rather than by the type of offence. The ROA gives people with spent convictions, cautions, reprimands and final warnings the legal right not to disclose them when applying for most jobs, most courses and all insurance purposes.

 

Most jobs are covered by the ROA, but some are exempt. If you apply for a job that is exempt from the ROA, the employer is entitled to request details of spent and unspent convictions and cautions that are not protected (i.e. eligible for filtering) and is entitled to take this information into account when determining your suitability for the role.

 

Clearly - things like speeding convictions impact on insurance, which impacts on the ability to do your job - so that is normally covered in jobs that have driving licence status as critical - so the contract requires licence status as a condition of employment. Not reporting it would be gross misconduct. It doesn't give the employer any rights to try to discover your conviction history - as there is legislation on that to cover most circumstances.