Employees have side jobs. If it were before COVID, if the company’s employees had side jobs that were done alongside their regular jobs, they might have been targeted or viewed negatively.
Executives may view doing part-time jobs, even if they are not the same as their regular jobs or not during regular work hours, as inadequate or unprofessional work.
But wait, is it wrong for employees to want to earn extra income by having a side job? If that employee can manage his life well and perform well with his regular job, is it wrong?
Have executives ever thought about why employees need to have extra jobs?
Because the salary he receives may not be enough to use. There are many problems that employees may be facing, such as he may be getting married, or having a new family member, or having problems that require more money.
So how can they earn extra income from their regular jobs? Waiting for a bonus or a salary increase is impossible. They have to find a way out by earning extra income, which is why they need to have a side job to do alongside their regular jobs.
In the past, the admin has seen many young people have additional jobs that come from struggling to find work themselves, which are of various types, such as being an insurance agent (or in this era called a financial planner), selling products online, and most of the work can be done after work or can be done without affecting the regular work.
But doing part-time jobs, even if they are not illegal, cannot be announced to people at work because many employees are afraid that the management will find a reason to take action against them.
The issue of employees having extra jobs is therefore something that is seen as not very good from the perspective of the executives or organizations.
But everything changed because of the arrival of Covid.
Many companies have faced problems due to the arrival of COVID. The severity of the symptoms depends on the ability of the executives and the organization itself to cope with COVID, how much or how long it will last.
The impact is mostly on the employees. For example, the first step is to reduce salaries, reducing them in stages according to position. Higher positions are hit harder. If reducing the salaries of all employees is still unsuccessful, then the process of laying off employees may be to lay off unnecessary employees or employees with little experience, or have them voluntarily resign. If the organization still has ongoing problems after reducing salaries and laying off employees, it eventually has to close down.
Shockingly, Covid happened and it only took 4-5 months to shut down major companies very quickly.
If executives or organizations are open-minded and open to other channels, the chances of survival will certainly be higher.
Even though we already know that it is difficult for our core business to sustain employees in the long term, why not help employees or find opportunities to generate income to help them during this crisis?
Now, the admin will take us to Thai AirAsia. Here, “they have a policy to encourage employees to have additional jobs. ” Let’s find the answer to why the executives here have this kind of policy and what do they expect from this policy?
Admin had the opportunity to talk to Mr. Topad Subanrak, Director of Sustainability and Corporate Communications, AirAsia Group, about the “Employee Part-Time Job Policy”.
Mr. Topad said that after the arrival of COVID, AirAsia announced a “policy to encourage employees to have additional careers” , which means allowing employees to have additional careers in addition to their regular jobs to increase their income.
On condition that employees are still fully responsible for their main job and are prohibited from using the company logo or reputation for their own benefit. The additional job must not violate the law and good morals and must not have a negative effect on the company’s image and reputation.
Mr. Topad also added that the “higher level” of allowing part-time jobs is to increase upskill potential and provide part-time jobs in the form of a matching market to provide part-time jobs to employees. There is a collaboration with partners such as Ananda Development Public Company Limited in the 2nd Job 2nd Chance project to provide training to interested Thai AirAsia employees. There is a real estate training program with 7 free online courses! Along with organizing a workshop to train at a real project to create real estate salespeople and be able to generate additional income through another channel.
AirAsia also launched the platform “Our Market”, a market that P’Tok (Santisuk Klongyaiya, CEO of Thai AirAsia) said was “born from love” to help support each other. It is an online-to-online market with salespeople as employees, with great products from upcountry and from communities across the country via FindFood. What’s even better is that the delivery drivers are our own employees.
Mr. Topad told me that this is not the first time that we have noticed that AirAsia is trying its best to take care of its employees. In the days when the company is struggling, we choose to distribute “duties” to help the company save costs as much as possible. To put it simply, we “reduce salaries”. The seniors in higher positions take on heavier “duties”, while the juniors take on “duties” in descending order. But one thing is for sure, the situation will continue indefinitely.
CEO Tok therefore invites us to think of a “way” to reduce the impact on employees and consider it as ESG (Environment | Social | Governance) risk management for both the company and the employees themselves. If one day we may have to manage more intensively than before, we will prepare both the company and the employees as best we can.
When the company’s income decreases, the employees’ income decreases. When will the situation improve? No one knows.
The company’s main job is to sell tickets, sell everything, increase liquidity and expand the business line. The main job must be done, there must be additional work, everything must be done so that “we” can “float” and survive through this business storm.
And to “wait” for the day we reach the shore, and on that day, Brother Joe (Tharasapol Baleveld, Chairman of the Board of
Thai AirAsia) said…we will come back stronger than before.
This is the story of Thai AirAsia overcoming this crisis by promoting additional careers for its employees.
Admin thinks that it is time for today’s executives to dare to change, dare to change their thinking, and get out of the old framework of thinking that is outdated or no longer valid.
It is not unusual for employees to have a side job. Now, this has become a must-have. It is another way to build immunity for the organization’s employees and the organization itself.
We can try to find a company or organization that we can partner with and start a good project that our employees can benefit from together. So that in the future, if we have to face another crisis, we will survive together.
#Extra job, hard work #Main job, fight with all your heart #2ndJob2ndChance
Co-author: Ms. Topad Subanrak, Director of Sustainability and Corporate Communications, AirAsia Group
Illustration: Thanks to Thai AirAsia and Ananda Development PCL.
For more articles about AirAsia, please visit:
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