If you take on freelance consulting contracts, will your employer fire you for conflict of interest?
It is generally perfectly legal to have supplemental income outside your job.
First, check your contract or letter of offer. Did you agree not to work outside your current employment situation? Have a look also at your employer’s general Human Resources and Conflict of Interest policies. Is there anything in there that says you can’t work outside that job? These clauses do exist but may be difficult for them to enforce legally. Make sure you know your employer’s policy (the one you agreed to when you signed on to that organization.)
Philosophically, it’s important to remember that your employer doesn’t own your life nor your choices outside your job. That said, it is of course your responsibility to avoid conflict of interest in your job.
Conflict of interest arises when you use your employment to enrich yourself outside your job.
That conflict usually arises in one of the following forms:
Using your employer’s equipment and facilities to enrich yourself is conflict of interest. You can’t use your office computer, your office photocopier, your desk, or anything else that belongs to your employer in your side gig.
Using your employer’s time to enrich yourself is conflict of interest. No, you can’t squeeze in a half-hour of freelance time when you’re on your employer’s clock, even if you’ve got all your work done for the day.
Using your employer’s contacts and relationships to enrich yourself is conflict of interest. You can’t call up a client or partner from work and offer your services to them as a freelancer—even for a seemingly unrelated project. Keep your work relationships and your clients entirely separate.
Using your employer’s intellectual property to enrich yourself is conflict of interest. Work you have produced for your employer generally belongs to your employer, though a lawyer might be able to navigate any gray areas here.
Are you getting the picture?
You own your talents.
That said, your employer doesn’t own your skills, your talent, your intellect, or your profession. They belong to you and you are free to use them as you see fit. Just don’t put yourself in conflict of interest.
In my case, I spent a few years building up clients and contracts before I cut the cord from my employer. A the time, I was employed by a federal agency on the west coast. My clients were: a municipal government one province away; a zoo one province away; a local aquarium; a science centre one province away.
It takes time to build up your materials and your contacts as a freelancer. That’s why I advise not cutting the cord from your employer without a few contracts under your belt and without a client network.
Non-competition agreements
It is rare to be asked to sign a non-competition agreement: a contract that says you will not work at a competing business within x months or x kilometres after leaving a job. I have known one colleague who signed one while working at a small zoo in a competitive tourism market. There is much discussion online about how legal/defensible these agreements are. If in doubt, ask a lawyer.