Cost of living crisis means employers should support side hustles

As the cost of living crisis deepens, business leaders are looking for ways to help staff make ends meet. Encouraging side hustles is one smart option, says Simon Paine, co-founder and CEO of the Rebel Business School

The cost of living is rising fast, but those running businesses are feeling the pinch, too. For many business owners I know, a pay increase is simply not possible. So finding other ways to help out struggling employees is becoming a necessity.

One recommendation I have is to encourage those working for you to consider additional income streams, the cool kids call these ‘side hustles’.

I would even recommend letting employees work on their side hustles during work hours. Why? It’ll mean higher engagement with team members. Also, someone with a side hustle becomes more motivated overall and will inevitably learn skills relevant for their day job.

Such a policy also shows your commitment to a learning culture and helping people achieve financial independence.

It has never been more possible to create a side hustle. Creating an extra income through alternative sources of income so that we’re not reliant on one source of income: that will be super important for 2022 and beyond.

Give them time

It might seem counterintuitive, but actively encouraging your team to embark on their own side hustles can be brilliant for them. Not only that but I even recommend allowing them some work time to pursue them.

If you have an employee with a growth mindset who’s got the excitement and energy to make something, you’re probably going to lose that employee in any case if you don’t give them the opportunity to develop in this way.

Encouraging side hustles works particularly well for my team at Rebel Business School. We run interactive courses which help people from all walks of life to start up their own businesses for free.

If the majority of my team have got their own experience of starting and failing, starting and succeeding then, when they have conversations with the participants of our course, they’re coming from a place of experience. It means they’ve got more credibility.

Side hustles my own staff have set up include running a web design business, selling their own wildlife photography and setting up a film reviews website.

From team members’ point of view, a side hustle can mean a welcome second stream of income during difficult times. But it’s also a good time for anyone to start up, regardless of the cost of living.

Plug your skills gaps

Everywhere I go, I hear employers frustrated they can’t find ‘skilled and experienced’ staff. Yet think of all the different skills an employee might gain if they run their own business – sales, web design, marketing, product development – the list is endless. Employers see side hustles as a smart way to plug their own skills gaps.

The world has changed so much in the last two years, we all need to start thinking differently about business. Here is some advice for employers with side hustlers in their ranks.

Four tips for starting a side hustle right now

1 Talk to customers

Urge your team to communicate with anyone they think might be interested in buying something from them. It might be family, friends, neighbours and colleagues to start with. They should find out what their problems are today and offer to help solve them.

2 Write down ideas

Ideas are currency at the moment and everybody is crying out for them. Always keep an open mind because, even if you hate an idea at first, buried in there could be a nugget which could trigger a thought that could change everything. Urge your team to write ideas down, share them and test them.

3 Avoid loans at all costs

We have a cost of living crisis and so the last thing anyone needs is debt. There are plenty of loan companies out there are looking to profit from our business misery. Urge your staff to give them a wide berth.

4. Explore the metaverse

Beyond COVID and the cost of living, we have yet another revolution taking place. The metaverse. There are so many opportunities, especially for those that are creative, and there are businesses being created for things that don’t exist yet. Think virtual fashion designers for avatars as one example.

About Simon Paine

Simon Paine is the CEO and co-founder of Rebel Business School, which helps people from all walks of life to start their own businesses. Rebel’s mission is to change the way entrepreneurship is taught across the world. The company has educated over 15,000 people in seven different countries through free events and helped launch 805 businesses in 2020 alone.

In 2021, Rebel won a Queen’s Award for promoting opportunity. Its work has also been backed by organisations including Google, Henley Business School, Westminster City Council and the Department for Work and Pensions.