兼职能让本职工作更上一层楼？

    有些人甚至发现兼职与本职工作形成了协同效应。贝丝•海纳瑞•沃森是得克萨斯州矿井区商会（Mineral Wells Area Chamber of Commerce）的执行董事。最近，她和丈夫在得克萨斯州威德福买下了一家All Star Clips发廊。她的本职工作是为小企业提供咨询，包括如何解决问题和实现利润增长。有了自己的第一家小企业后，她的建议具备了实践经验支持。比如：沃森知道All Star Clips的大部分客户是男性。“显然，这是我们应该努力扩大的客户群。根据这第一手经验，我告诉商会成员们，他们应该瞄准目标群体，婉拒一些客户。”

    她说，“为企业提供咨询的人如果有过自己办企业的经验，很有意义。”

    发展社交媒体技能来推广副业的人们也能将这种经验应用于本职工作。内容知识也很有用。马丁•考迪与他的医生客户们谈论很多葡萄酒；马里兰州安纳波利斯一家小型律师事务所的经理杰尼弗•提特斯发现，业余撰写个人理财文章，让她在本职工作中讨论养老金计划时更加自信了，“我在提问和给出意见时更加自信了”。

    更广泛的人脉网络也能加分。“比如，如果你参与一个非营利组织或社区组织，你的出色表现可能会给你的雇主提供某种关系，”《多打几份工》（One Person/Multiple Careers）的作者玛西•艾尔伯赫表示，“如果兼职能帮你认识更多的人，同样也能帮到你的本职工作。”

    即便没有这样显著的协同效应，新书《100美元初创公司：重塑谋身之道，做你喜欢做的事情，创造新的未来》（The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love and Create a New Future）的作者克里斯•古里博表示，容忍或支持员工兼职也有一个好处。你能吸引到精力充沛的创业型人才。正因为出于这样的考虑，有些公司会给出无限制休假时间，以便人们能在工作之余做任何想做的事情。“想想——大多数员工处于现职是因为他们不得不这样，”古里博表示。有其他选择的——比如兼职，如果他们想，他们就可以把兼职转化为全职——人才往往不在被挑选之列。“你绝对想要这样的员工，”他说。

    当然，也有底线。工作之余推出一款与现有公司竞争的产品是绝对不允许的，在博客上宣扬雇主的缺点也不是什么好事。而且如果有人希望创立一番大事业，最终总是需要将此变成一份全职工作。“不管怎样，关键是要确保兼职不是很花费时间和精力，不会让你忽视本职工作，不存在利益冲突，”艾尔伯赫表示。如果周末设计珠宝能让一位员工开心（并且可能不再那么迫切地要求加薪），很难想象为什么公司要反对。

    译者：老榆木

    "It makes a lot of sense for someone who works to help businesses to have owned one before," she says.

    People who develop social media skills to promote their side businesses can put that knowledge to use in their main gigs. Content knowledge is also useful. Martin Cody has a lot of conversations with his physician clients about wine; Jennifer Teates, a firm manager of a small Annapolis, Maryland law firm, finds that her freelance work as a personal finance writer has given her more confidence during 401k discussions at her main job. "I am more confident in asking questions and offering opinions," she says.

    A stronger social network may be a plus too. "For example, if you're involved in a nonprofit or community organization, your good works may provide some kind of benefit-by-association for your employer," says Marci Alboher, author of One Person/Multiple Careers. "A side business can work the same way if it helps you make new connections that can help your main employer."

    But even without these obvious synergies, tolerating or even supporting employees' side gigs has another upside, notes Chris Guillebeau, author of the recently published The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love and Create a New Future. You attract entrepreneurial people with lots of energy. This is one thought behind some organizations giving unlimited vacation time so people can pursue whatever projects they want outside of work. "Think about it -- most employees are [at their jobs] out of dependency," says Guillebeau. Those that have other options -- such as side gigs they could do full-time if they wanted -- are there out of choice. "Those are going to be the employees you absolutely want," he says.

    There are limits, to be sure. Working to launch a competing product on the side is a no-no, and blogging about your employer's flaws is not a good call. And if someone aims to start a really big business, eventually that needs to become the day job. "The key in all instances is to make sure that your side business isn't so consuming that you neglect your day job, and that it doesn't present any conflicts of interest," says Alboher. But if designing jewelry on weekends can make an employee happy (and potentially less pushy about asking for a raise) it's hard to see why an organization wouldn't get on board.