There’s an on-going concern with some of our employees. They were found to have put up a business together. Although the nature of the business is different from what we do here, there may be some conflicts.
One inherited the business from his father and he, as was reported to us, invited two other guys here to join him to contribute money. There’s nothing wrong with that, except if, again, there’s a conflict of time and interest.
1. Examples of conflict of time:
a. Employees pretending to be outside doing client calls, test driving, and yet they are outside doing work for their own business.
b. If they would time in, leave their computers on, and pretend to be in and around the building, but in truth, they are somewhere else, doing work for the other company.
c. They are here, physically present, and yet the work that they do is for their own company. Work includes using the computer to write memos, plan for their own business, making phone calls for and on behalf of the other company, etc.
2. Conflict of Interest
a. If they are encouraging our other staff to join them. Pirating people from our group.
b. Using our network to lure in customers for their company.
c. Illegally acquiring funds from our company to invest in the other company.
Illegally means cheating us with the transactions, manipulating financing computations to get more money for themselves at the expense of our company.
d. Selling unauthorized accessories to our customers for their own benefit.
c. etc.
We are not angry with them. We are very objective and understanding. But for better relationships, an open communication must be present. It’s not illegal to have activities other than your present job unless the above are present and it’s a competing business. If not, what is needed is transparency. Nothing to hide if it’s not bad.
Hiding breeds doubt and distrust. We are open to all our employees. We are very fair and we do not exploit them nor our customers. We give our trust and respect whether they are managers or messengers or cleaners. We also wish that they accord us with the same trust and respect.
Although our businesses are not big, we are happy to be able to help our employees improve their lives in a legal and good way. They may not appreciate it, but at least we are able to contribute to society by helping some people send their children to school, live decent lives, help their parents and siblings, better afford simple luxuries. Some have built houses, bought cars, small land, and traveled.
I would rather see our former employees becoming millionaires rather than seeing them starving. Provided they acquired their wealth thru legal and honest ways.
We all want our lives to improve for the better. We all want our people to be productive members of the community. We all want our creator to be proud of what we do.
What we do is who we are.
Are we enriching our lives at the expense of other people?
