Ex-Microsoft HR head says companies should allow workers to have multiple jobs

Chris Williams, former vice president of human resources at Microsoft (Image credit: LinkedIn)

Chris Williams has worked with Microsoft for eight years and in his last role, he was the VP of human resources. As someone who has managed employees for 40 years, he has a strong opinion on employees working multiple jobs.

"What they choose to do when not working for you is simply none of your business," Williams said in a message to companies via Business Insider. He added that it is unrealistic for managers to think their claim to employees' time is exclusive.

"Working multiple jobs is a part of the fabric of the working world — so common that it's in the origin stories of many successful people. 'My mom worked two jobs to put us kids through college'," the former Microsoft executive said. "The freedom of place granted by work-from-home made this option available to more workers. Given 168 hours in a week, an eager or financially struggling employee sees a single 40-hour job as a poor use of time. It's unrealistic to expect them to use but 25 percent of their week to make ends meet or to get ahead."

Williams also spoke about how managers were horrified when they realised that they lost control of the employees once work-from-home was introduced during the pandemic.

" The introduction of work-from-home was a fascinating time because it gave me a chance to see abject fear on the faces of managers because they suddenly lost the very control they had lived by," he told Business Insider. "Employees now working from home were relieved of a commute, office distractions, and the hawk eye of their managers. Most transitioned effectively, and many thrived."

The former Microsoft VP, however, clarified that this doesn't mean employees be given free rein to work for possible competitors.

"An employee working for a competitor -- or even worse, leveraging confidential information -- is a problem. As an employer, you have some rights to enforce non-compete and confidentiality restrictions (although those vary by state or country and are complicated by remote arrangements)," he said. "But outside of that, an employee using their time or skills to make additional income comes down to one simple question: how are they performing?"

Williams advised managers to address the deficit if employees are underperforming, and encouraged them to hold them accountable for their deliverables. "Press them to provide the value you're paying them for. Treat it as you would any other performance issue. What they are doing outside of work that might be causing a performance problem is, again, none of your business. Your response should be: I expect and am paying for these results, you're not delivering, let's solve that problem," he said.

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