How Can Employers Empower Employees Working Multiple Jobs to Make Ends Meet?

The pandemic has compelled us to reconsider the ways we do business. It has left us all feeling a little behind the eight ball, and we're still trying to figure out how to get back up. But one thing we do know is that if you're not willing to work harder than ever before, then you aren't going to achieve your goals.

Recent events could be challenging for any business owner. We've had to redefine our definition of a team, and it has led us to a new way of thinking about leadership and how it can bring significant changes to our company. We've always sought to empower our employees with the knowledge they need to succeed at their jobs, but now we're taking it one step further: We want them to know they can work multiple jobs if they wish.

This is especially relevant this year. According to a Bloomberg report, the number of Australians working more than one job to make ends meet jumped 4.3% to 900,000 in three months through June alone. How, then, can we help empower employees without having to compromise their productivity and the quality of work they bring?

One such way is by promoting #workanywhere, allowing for a hybrid setup. With this, employees are given more flexibility in managing their work schedule from the comfort of their own homes, resulting in less stress at work. This means higher job satisfaction, performance and more work done. Ultimately, we can expect our business to grow without the traditional overhead expenses for an office workspace.

However, there are caveats to the work-from-home setup. For one, employees might tend to overwork since the physical transition from office to home is no longer present—they might encounter difficulties knowing when to do their tasks for one job, when to start the other, and when to finally take a break. At BundyPlus, we believe that time is the most critical principle in maximizing productivity-revenue and taking some personal time as well. As leaders, we can begin by creating guidelines where the measure of productivity is not to work a specific number of hours a day; instead, we'll shift the focus to the output produced by an employee. Here, we can choose time tracking systems to gauge how much time a task takes so our team members know which projects to prioritize, as well as flexible attendance and scheduling processes for easier delegation of work across the team.

Aside from effective time management, managers may also take the time to regularly do check-ins with their staff, allowing them to assess an employee's individual competencies. From this point, they can assign tasks that are specifically tailored to their strengths. The result is two-fold: we can accomplish our goals with the least effort, and our workforce will have more breathing room for other jobs or themselves.

If you're worrying that employees with multiple jobs might impact your company, bear in mind that we all need to be more resilient than ever in order to cope in these uncertain times. And as entrepreneurs, it's well within our power to be involved in their growth—after all, their growth means growth for our business, too!