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Slashdot Asks: Should an Employee Be Fired For Working On Personal Side Projects During Office Hours? (quora.com)
An anonymous reader writes: I found this article that talks about whether an engineer should be fired if s/he is working on a side project. Several people who have commented in the thread say that the employer should first talk to the person and understand why they are working on personal projects during the office hours. One reason, as many suggested, could be that the employee might not have been fairly compensated despite being exceptionally good at the job. In which case, the problem resides somewhere in the management who has failed to live up to the expectations. What do you folks think? Let's not just focus on engineers, per se. It could be an IT guy (who might have a lot of free time in hand), or a programmer.
It depends, though. At least in most of the US (it varies by state), a salaried employee is supposedly being compensated for the job that they do, not the hours that they keep. If the job requires certain hours, then technically you should be using hourly employees. There are obviously fuzzy areas, and many, many businesses play fast and loose with the rules. Anyway, if the employee is salaried is doing what is asked of them, then they are still guilty of using company resources for a personal project. But that's a far lesser sin than "stealing" hours, which is what is implied in the question.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I've never had an IP agreement with a company that claimed work done off duty.
I worked at a company that tried to take ownership of all past copyrights, trademarks and inventions unrelated to the company under a new IP agreement. That caused a big uproar as everyone was a creative person in some way. More than a few had their own IP attorney and most threaten to quit. HR had to step in to get legal to go back to the previous IP agreement.