Employee Polygamy: When One Job Just Isn’t Enough

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From the employee:

“I don’t trust any employer with my future. The only real protection is spreading the risk—keeping a few income streams so no one owns me. Besides, I want to retire at forty-five, and that’ll never happen on one paycheck.”

From the employer:

When I checked my inbox at 4:47 p.m., I found a ping from my full-time employee. I hadn’t heard a peep from him since 11:03 a.m., and I’ve long suspected he’s moonlighting. I picture him juggling two Zoom windows, toggling between our project and someone else’s deliverable, nodding earnestly in both meetings.

Welcome to career polygamy, where people secretly date multiple employers, and the dumped partner doesn’t even know they’ve been ghosted.

The Rise of the Multi-Job Marriage

When I wrote about this in 2022, I noted remote work had already sparked a boom in modern-day moonlighting, https://workplacecoachblog.com/2022/03/remote-employee-moonlighting/. Then, 69% of 1250 remote employees worked a second job, with 37% of them holding two full-time jobs, https://www.resumebuilder.com/7-in-10-remote-workers-have-multiple-jobs/.

Since then, moonlighters have evolved into full-time career polyamorists—employees maintaining two or more full-time jobs simultaneously, usually remote, often undisclosed, and occasionally heroic in their multitasking.

Nearly half manage both roles remotely; the rest blend remote and in-person work. Only one-third admit to working 80 hours or more weekly. The rest? They’ve either found a wormhole in the space-time continuum—or one employer foots the bill for hours spent on another’s clock.

Remote work and flexible schedules have turbocharged the side-hustle economy. Entire online communities trade tips on juggling full-time multiple gigs, negotiating severance if caught, and doubling salaries without doubling their effort.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Plenty.
Let’s start with the obvious:

• Contract breaches. Most employment contracts forbid secondary full-time jobs or require disclosure. Employees splitting their attention violate both agreements.
• Confidentiality breaches. Working two jobs in the same sector means insider info can cross-pollinate faster than spring pollen.
• Fatigue and burnout. When you’re moonlighting at noon, exhaustion follows. Productivity and creativity both crash.
• Trust erosion. Employers discovering secret side gigs often feel duped.
• Potential fraud. Claiming multiple full-time salaries while underperforming might cross the legal line from “clever” to “criminal.”

In short: polygamous working looks romantic in theory—financial freedom! independence!—but often ends in betrayal, exhaustion, and one too many browser tabs open.

Why Employers Feel the Sting

Employers fund salaries, benefits, and bandwidth assuming they have an employee’s time and focus. When that focus splits, output slips, projects stall, and morale sinks. In regulated industries—healthcare, finance, public service—dual employment can also breach laws or ethical codes.

Governments aren’t immune. The U.K. recently outed civil servant Kashim Chowdhury, accused of simultaneously working for three public-sector employers, https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/polygamous-working-is-a-minefield-for-hr/. That’s not multitasking—that’s a scheduling miracle.

How to Spot a Workplace Bigamist

You might have a “career polygamist” on your hands if:

• Their productivity nosedives, and they’re unreachable during core hours or “always in another meeting.”
• Their webcam never turns on—“technical issues,” of course.
• They dodge in-person gatherings and offer foggy daily updates.
• Their email timestamps make you wonder if they ever sleep—or if someone else’s Slack owns their daylight hours.

Employer Countermeasures

1. Update your contracts. Include clear terms about exclusivity, secondary employment, and conflicts of interest.

2. Clarify expectations. “Full-time” means full attention during paid hours. Period.
3. Encourage openness. Create a culture where employees can disclose side gigs without fear. Transparency prevents deceit.
4. Pay fairly. If employees feel forced into extra jobs to survive, that’s a deeper problem worth fixing.

Let’s Be Honest

Holding a second job isn’t illegal. But when those extra roles overlap paid hours or blur ethical lines, trouble brews fast. Double-dipping salaries may sound efficient—until it looks like fraud.

Transparency remains the real cure. When employees admit, “Hey, I work a side gig, and employers respond with flexibility instead of fury, everyone wins. Workers feel trusted; employers stay informed. The workplace stops feeling like a dating game and starts looking more like a healthy marriage—one job at a time.

Lynne Curry, PhD, SPHR, SHRM-SCP