Is it any of your business what your employees do outside of work?
The pros and cons of letting staff have a side hustle.
What would you do if you found out one of your employees had been running an influential fake news website in their spare time? That was the choice facing executives at the US investment bank Citigroup last month after one of its IT directors, Jason Gelinas, was outed as being the brains behind Qmap.pub.
The website is part of an online network peddling QAnon, a shadowy far right conspiracy theory that claims among other things that Donald Trump is spearheading a global war against paedophile rings and Satan worshippers. Qmap.pub is now closed, and Gelinas is on paid leave, pending investigation.
For the record, I’m no fan of the rise of the far right, or of spurious doomsday prophecies for that matter, but this case presents interesting food for thought for all organisations: is it really any of your business what your employees get up to outside of work?