In today’s work culture, business leaders are going to have to come to terms with the fact that many Americans are pursuing other ventures outside of their 9-to-5s.

A whopping one-in-three Americans reportedly have a side hustle these days, and it’s hard to blame them. A volatile economy coupled with rising inflation left many workers feeling financially vulnerable in the wake of the pandemic, and diversifying their income streams became a smart way to shore up their financial security.

For several years, Chris Browning kept his side hustle a secret at work. By day, he was a financial analyst fluent in Excel spreadsheets and budget analysis. But once office hours ended, he propped up a mic in a makeshift recording studio at home and morphed into a podcast host and personal finance educator.

Browning, who launched his podcast Popcorn Finance in the summer of 2017, continued to juggle his day job and side hustle for years, with his colleagues none the wiser. It was relatively easy to keep his side gig a secret for a while — until he started getting media attention for his show and needed to use vacation time for business trips.

“I went to an awards ceremony, and it was just too awkward not to tell them because I would probably post something online and they were going to see it," Browning said in an interview for my podcast Brown Ambition. "So I just started to say, honestly, hey, this is what I'm up to.”

After he came clean to his boss, he was relieved to find out she wasn’t rattled. “She was super supportive of me and cheered me on…at this point now, pretty much everyone I work with knows what I do,” he said.

If you’re wondering how to toe the line between pursuing a side hustle and keeping your boss happy, here are some tips to consider:

Check your employee handbook

Your company may have a policy in place that requires employees to declare any potential conflicts of interest or business ventures. If you’re found to have violated those rules by withholding information about your other gig, you could get the boot.

Watch out for non-competes

It’s become increasingly common for employees to sign work agreements that prevent them from moonlighting for competitors during their employment and for a period of time after they leave their company. Read any such agreements carefully and make sure you’re not in violation with your new business.

It’s one thing if you work full time at a bank and operate a dog-walking business on the side. Those two ventures are so different in nature that it’s unlikely to interfere with a non-compete agreement your employer may have.