Polywork is rising, but HR policies are stuck in 2016: What to update first?

Polywork means employees maintaining side businesses, freelancing in their professional field, consulting for other companies, or building personal brands through content creation, all while holding down full-time employment. This provides a logical way of diversifying income streams during economic uncertainty, building career insurance, and developing skills that traditional employment may not offer. So it's proactive and understandable when employees take these actions.

For employers and HR teams worried about divided attention and conflicts of interest, the solution is not doubling down on outdated exclusivity clauses. It's updating HR policies to reflect how work actually functions in 2026. Most employee handbooks still operate under 2016 assumptions: that employees have one job, give their entire professional identity to one employer, and draw a clear line between work time and personal time. That reality no longer exists for a growing segment of the workforce.

Rewrite conflict of interest policies

Traditional HR policies assume any outside work represents disloyalty or distraction for employees. But these policies were written when secondary jobs meant low-wage retail or service work to make ends meet, not skilled professional activity that enhances an employee's capabilities. 

Modern polywork, though, looks different. For instance, a marketing manager might run a small consulting practice on the side, while a finance professional might create educational content or advise startups.

Blanket prohibitions on outside work push employees to hide their side hustles, creating a breakdown of trust between the employee and the employer. Worse, they limit access to talent as top performers refuse jobs with restrictive outside work policies, viewing them as outdated and controlling.

The solution is simple: HR teams must update their rulebook. Define clear boundaries: no working for direct competitors, no using company resources for outside work, no outside commitments that interfere with job performance or availability during core hours. Beyond that, give employees freedom to pursue professional growth.

Clarify Intellectual Property and Work Product Ownership

Standard IP clauses claim ownership of anything an employee creates that is ‘related to the company's business’ or ‘using company resources.’ These provisions made sense when employees worked on company premises using company equipment during defined hours. They make no sense when employees work from home on personal devices across flexible schedules.

The rise of polywork exposes how poorly these clauses work. Imagine this scenario: A data scientist builds a personal analytics tool using the same skills he uses professionally. The employee might fear that their individual creation will be taken by the company under these outdated laws. 

HR teams must update these IP policies and make them more specific. Organisations can only claim ownership of work created during work hours, using company resources, or directly related to company projects. Everything else belongs to the employee. Make exceptions explicit: if someone is specifically hired to invent, create, or develop in areas that might overlap with outside interests, address that clearly in their contract.

Rethink non-compete and non-solicitation agreements

Many HR teams still include non-compete clauses in a standard contract. These provisions attempt to prevent employees from working in their field for competitors after leaving, sometimes for years and across wide geographic areas.

HR teams should instead focus on updated approaches that focus on protecting genuine business interests through narrower mechanisms. Non-solicitation agreements that prevent former employees from raiding client lists or poaching entire teams are more defensible than broad prohibitions on working in an industry. Confidentiality agreements that protect trade secrets and proprietary information address actual risks without restricting career mobility.

Create clear secondary employment approval processes

Some employers are updating policies to explicitly allow outside work with approval rather than prohibiting it. The challenge, though, is making approval processes clear, fair, and efficient rather than full of obstacles.

Poorly designed approval processes create the worst of both worlds. Employees must disclose outside activities, subjecting themselves to potential judgment or discrimination, while getting no clear criteria for what will be approved.

Updated approval processes should include clear criteria for evaluation. The process should also include reasonable timelines. Requiring weeks of bureaucracy for approval of minor consulting projects or content creation creates friction between employees and employers. Fast-track approval for clearly permissible activities, with more review only for genuinely complex situations.

Address Compensation and Benefits in a Multi-Work Reality

Traditional compensation and benefits assume employees depend entirely on their employer for financial security and healthcare. This assumption shapes everything from salary negotiations to benefits design. But employees engaged in polywork have diversified income and sometimes alternative benefits.

This creates both challenges and opportunities for employers. On one hand, employees with multiple income streams have more negotiating leverage and less desperation to accept whatever is offered. On the other hand, total compensation might be structured more flexibly when employers aren't carrying the entire burden of someone's financial security.

Some progressive employers are experimenting with flexible benefits that acknowledge multi-work realities. Options might include a higher base salary with minimal benefits for employees who have coverage elsewhere, more flexible work arrangements in exchange for different compensation structures.

Conclusion

The rise of polywork is not a trend to resist but a reality to acknowledge and adapt to. Employees are building career insurance, diversifying income, developing skills, and creating professional optionality. Employers can respond by updating policies to reflect how work actually functions in 2026, or they can cling to 2016 frameworks that fail to serve anyone's interests.

The organisations getting this right are those that update conflict of interest policies to focus on genuine risks rather than theoretical loyalty, shift to outcome-based work expectations that respect flexibility, narrow IP claims to protect actual business interests, encourage professional visibility and personal branding, replace non-competes with more defensible protections, create clear and fair approval processes, and design compensation approaches that acknowledge diverse financial situations.

HR leaders must update old policies that force employees to choose between compliance and career development. Build frameworks that acknowledge polywork as a legitimate professional activity rather than treating it as disloyalty.