Addressing Side Jobs Is about Communication and Transparency

RCS Influencer Charles Antis says its human nature for skilled labor to want to use that skill to make additional money at times with side jobs, but it’s important for employees to be open and honest about it.

TRANSCRIBED BELOW:

Charles Antis being interviewed by Junior Journalist Ava Inman Schumacher

Ava: Hi. I'm Ava, and I'm here to find out how Antis Roofing handles employee side jobs. Hi Charles.

Charles: Hi.

Ava: How many employees do you have?

Charles: I have 95.

Ava: Wow. Okay. Do any of them ever do side jobs?

Charles: Yes, they do. I would say most of them do side jobs, or have.

Ava: Is that ever a problem?

Charles: Oh yes. There's been a lot of problems. I can think of a case a couple of years ago where an employee took a side job, while they were on one of our jobs, that the company should have probably done. They took it for themselves. They made up a lie to the homeowner saying that we would approve of it, and then there were problems on the job that leaked. The homeowner came after Antis Roofing upset when we never did it,Inman  but he pretended he actually ran the job I think through our company and wore our shirts and used our materials on the job, and he was consequently fired.

Ava: Okay. How do you control that problem?

Charles: That's a great question. I don't know that we ever completely control it, but I think it starts with the culture, because it is going to be human nature for all skilled laborer to use that skill to make money on the side. There's nothing wrong with that so long as none of the stakeholders of their primary employment are hurt. That means, are they taking work away from Antis Roofing that supplies for the other families? Are they taking creating exposure problems for somebody by damage, like it happened to us in the previous job? So I think, we control it, number one, by understanding that it happens and that we want our employees to have a good livelihood.

We also try to control it by setting rules that tell the employees what's fair and not fair. Although part of me wouldn't ... It wouldn't bother me if they used a tube of caulking. We have to tell the employees they're responsible to pay for the material that they use in their side jobs. We also have to say, obviously, they can't double-bill us and get paid on a side job while they're getting paid on our job. So the number one thing that we require is communication. We ask our employees to tell us if they're asked to do a side job during the day, especially while they're on the course of our jobs, and if they do, I instruct management, or our management decision is to allow that so long as it doesn't bring any other problems.

But the main thing is communication and transparency. If the employee is honest and open and the company has an open policy, which I believe it should, that would allow them to make this extra income, then I don't think it's a big problem. And so I'd say to Antis Roofing, today, we control it by putting our employees first in all cases. We always put our employees first before we make decisions. We comp them as well as anybody in the industry. We give them time off. We give them extra time off. We give them bonuses. And so by taking really good care of our employees and treating them equally and letting them have a voice and letting them all be educated for growth in the industry, we find that the trend falls away from stealing money and time to do side jobs. Does that make sense?

Ava: Yes.

Charles: How'd I do? All right. Thanks.

Ava: Thank you.