How to handle agency employee side hustles

It is not uncommon for agency employees to want to do a bit of freelancing on the side. Some even have dreams of starting their own agency or other business.

How do you protect your agency’s interest while not stifling your employee’s ambition? What should you do when an employee comes to you to share what they’re doing or considering? How about the times when you discover what they’re up to and they never disclosed?

Chip and Gini cover these questions and more in this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast.

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The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

Chip Griffin 

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin,

Gini Dietrich 

and I’m Gini Dietrich,

Chip Griffin 

and Gini. I have this idea for another podcast. I think I’m going to work on it over the next 20 minutes. Is that all right with you? That

Gini Dietrich 

sounds great.

Chip Griffin 

Excellent. right after this.

Gini Dietrich 

So before we start, I have to ask you was it Jen who found the still have me rolling my eyes at you? Because it was kind of amazing.

Chip Griffin 

I know that was that was all me. I handle all the video editing and that kind of stuff. Yes. Well, I thought it was I thought this we’re talking about the thumbnail for as we’re recording this the most recently published episode of the podcast, and I do try to have some fun with the thumbnails. And I’ve, I’ve tried to give myself as many funny looks as Jenny. But unfortunately, that one,

Gini Dietrich 

though, is it should be our it should go on the homepage, because it’s pretty indicative of how things go here.

Chip Griffin 

Yes, yes. I mean, it’s shocking.

Gini Dietrich 

I roll my eyes.

Chip Griffin 

Right? That’s how I captioned it. You know? Is she rolling her eyes up the idea? Or what I said, or just at me, generally, you have no idea. But it’s a good default look. So anyway, we’re going to go to one of your favorite eye rolling places today, Jenny? Oh, yes, I love I love the Reddit, we’re going to the well of all knowledge, and accuracy, Reddit agency subreddit. And today, we have an agency employee who is asking a question, and he or she writes, hey, all I work at an agency under a holding company, and we are asked to report outside business, I have a business idea I want to pursue and would honestly be useful as an internal platform, as part of me wants to approach leadership and report it asked permission to pitch internally for support. But I’m a bit scared, I guess I’ve had bad experiences. And then he asked, Does anyone else have an experience or advice? And you know, if you’ve got your own idea, what should you do? So this is this is, I think, a good topic because our listeners may be approaching this from either angle, there are some of you who are listening, maybe you’re thinking about starting your own agency, maybe you’re doing a little freelance work on the side, while you’re working for a larger agency. And so you’re wondering how to handle that. Or if you own your own agency already,