Wearing multiple hats can lead to personal satisfaction

It seems like everybody has a side hustle these days — from the entertainer with their own perfume line to the CEO who writes self-help books, or the teacher who sells toy collectibles on eBay. 

Whether it’s a way to make ends meet or to become a part of a niche community, one Arizona State University professor calls these folks “multiple jobholders.” 

Hudson Sessions, an associate professor in the Department of Management and Entrepreneurship at ASU's W. P. Carey School of Business, recently wrote a paper on the subject, titled “Self-Inconsistency or Self-Expansion From Wearing Multiple Hats? The Daily Effects of Enacting Multiple Professional Identities On Work Meaningfulness.”

Sessions’ research focuses on people who could be described as hybrid entrepreneurs, micro-entrepreneurs or plural careerists. He also examines how gig workers can overcome the challenges that accompany their independent work and what happens when employees speak up to improve the status quo in their organizations.

ASU News spoke to Sessions about multiple jobholders, how the phenomenon impacts traditional work-life balance and if it’s a benefit or a burden.

Note: Answers have been edited for length and/or clarity.

Question: What sparked your interest or curiosity in wanting to research this topic?

Answer: I have always been interested in people who step outside the box in their work lives — people who aren’t afraid to figure out a work arrangement that works for them, even if it looks different from just having a traditional 9-to-5 job. 

More and more often, this has meant people who take on multiple jobs. I’ll refer to these people who hold more than one job at the same time as “multiple jobholders.”

For some, taking on another job helps with the costs of living, such as an underpaid teacher who supplements their income with freelance writing on the side. For others, adopting another job helps them find more meaning, such as an accountant who makes crafts in their free time and sells them on Etsy. 

We’ve seen a boom in people opting to supplement one job with another, which I find to be a fascinating way for people to get the most out of their work lives. Of course, there are some very real costs to taking on multiple jobs, which I also think are critical. My overall goal is to understand how having multiple jobs both benefits and burdens people, which is something I do in this paper.

Q: The wearing of multiple hats — who does this specifically apply to? 

A: The clearest application of my work is to those who have two or more distinct jobs, like having a day job and doing gig work on the side (e.g., freelancing, delivering food, picking up photography gigs). These side hustlers have two clear roles that they juggle. However, my work also has implications for people who have multiple roles within the same job, such as an engineer who spends part of their day doing technical work and the other part managing people.

On the broadest level, my research applies to everyone who “contains multitudes” in their work life. You could ask yourself: Who am I in my work life? If the answer is more than one thing — whether that is more than one job or more than one role within a single job — my research applies to you. 

Q: My boss has a very intense job at ASU, but he’s also a very talented musician who spends his downtime in a recording studio. How would this scenario apply to your research?

Q: This publication looks at how people face “contradictions” or inconsistencies in who they are. People have increasingly complex stories of their jobs and roles. One implication of this is that people can be disoriented by their multifaceted work lives. 

So, that’s half the story: People, like your boss, have to work harder to keep a clear sense of who they are in their work lives, which is important because people find peace of mind in a clear self-definition. In particular, they find meaning in being able to clearly and simply answer who they are in their career, rather than having a murky picture of what they’re about in their work. So, your boss is pulled in two directions by such different roles, performing their day job at ASU and being a musician. 

Interestingly, there’s another half of the story that is critical here: People are invigorated by “containing multitudes.” We’re hardwired to want some variety in our work lives, and we feel stimulated by it. Thus, although we may struggle to find meaning from clear and simple labels in multifaceted work lives, we may make up for that lack of meaning by feeling “large” in the sense that we’re more than one thing. 

And that’s what I found in this paper: People with more than one work role tend to find meaning not from a clear self-definition ... but instead get meaning more from having a set of roles that provide variety and related stimulation. 

Q: What were some findings or discoveries that you found interesting in your research? 

A: We looked specifically at the day-to-day experiences of people with multiple jobs. We sent them multiple surveys each day over two weeks. We then compared how each participant’s workdays looked over time. Getting multiple weeks of data helped us be more accurate. 

We then analyzed how strongly identifying with their roles influenced people’s work outcomes, leading to both a less defined sense of self in their professional lives and increased stimulation. We also captured how those outcomes made their work feel more or less meaningful. Lastly, we did two experiments to find further support for our results.

We found that people with very different roles ... did indicate a murkier sense of who they are on days they actively performed both jobs. This less clear picture of themselves decreased how meaningful their work felt. We also found that days performing multiple roles were stimulating, which increased the meaningfulness of their work. Long story short, people who perform multiple jobs on a given day have less meaning from a streamlined sense of who they are, but they also feel enough stimulation from occupying various roles that they offset that potential lack of meaning.

Interestingly, we also had coworkers rate the performance of our participants. Coworkers indicated that daily meaningfulness made people perform better in their work. So, ultimately, we suggest that having multiple jobs can boost performance across roles because people find meaning in the stimulation of “containing multitudes,” i.e., performing a variety of work roles. 

Q: You have pointed out both good and bad things about wearing multiple hats in job scenarios. How do you make sense of these trade-offs?

A: The trade-offs of holding multiple work roles are tricky. Here’s what we know: We know that multiple jobholding has never been more prevalent. The gig economy and rising costs of living have given people more opportunities and motivation to hold more than one work role. Additionally, the stigma around having more than one job has shifted. We’ve gone from people largely hiding supplementary jobs to the emergence of what is sometimes called “hustle culture” in which having more than one work role is glamorized. 

For this large and growing population of multiple jobholders, we know there are several challenges. My research points to stress from playing by different sets of rules across jobs, like a teacher who is the head of a classroom but gets little regard as delivery person. My prior work also points to how side hustles can distract people from their day jobs, which hurts their job performance, as well as making them hostile at work, as they move from freedom in their side hustle to the constraints of their day job. Adding to this, the paper we’ve been discussing here suggests that having multiple, distinct jobs leads to a murkier sense of who one is in their work and less meaning.

On the flip side of these challenges, we know there are several benefits of multiple jobholding. My prior research suggests that people can feel empowered by having a side hustle — something they have control over — which makes them perform better in their day jobs. My work has also found that people can carry a sense of proactivity from their supplementary work into their day jobs. Regarding this paper, I add that people can be stimulated by having a variety of work roles, which helps them find more meaning in their work life.

I would note that the paper we’ve been talking about skews toward the positive — we found more consistent support for the stimulation and meaning that people get from having more than one work role, rather than the challenges with self-contradictions. There is more to learn, but the clearest point is that juggling more than one work role leads to a complex mix of benefits and detriments.

Q: Do you have any advice for people who wear multiple hats in their work life?

A: I think this is a nice follow-up to my point about a complex set of benefits and burdens associated with having multiple work roles — or having a single work role with largely distinct responsibilities. 

What I would suggest is a test-and-learn strategy when it comes to fitting the right work roles together. By a test-and-learn strategy, I mean that different combinations of roles will pair in unique ways and play out very differently for people. Finding the right fit requires some trial and error. The nice thing about supplementary work — particularly work from the gig economy — is that people can pick up a work role very quickly. Moreover, dropping these supplementary roles can be quick as well ... thus, people can test out work roles quite rapidly. That’s the “test” part of the test-and-learn strategy of wearing the "right" multiple hats.

The "learn" part is also vital. Instead of simply accepting the first new work role that one tests out, weighing the experience is essential. This may mean comparing different work roles over time — rather than simply going with the first one you test out. The thought put into this process is a key ingredient to finding an arrangement that limits the challenges of multiple jobholding while promoting the benefits. 

People who test and learn when it comes to the multiple hats they wear in their work life can maximize the benefits that my research points to and ultimately craft a work life that works well for them.