As people grow and evolve in their business endeavors, they may often seek alternate opportunities that suit their long-term vision that your company cannot provide to them. When a former employee parts way with a company there is either a sense of fulfillment from a job well done or a bitter sense of resentment from a company that they never wanted to work for in the first place.
No matter the feelings of the employer or employee post leave, there are five steps you can follow that will protect you and your company from unfair competition from your former employees.
1. Set proactive contracts
While someone can leave your company at a moments notice and face no resistance with what assets and information they take with them, proactive contracts that you set before even hiring employees in the first place should be a priority to ensure the protection of your information and valuable company assets.
2. Confidential information
By having a confidentiality statement in place for your company and its employees, you are able to control what valuable company information can and cannot be shared with the public or other corporations. Having a team to look over your business contract, such as Corpus Christi Business Lawyer, you can have peace of mind knowing that you have an established contract that legally restricts the information that may be shared about your business.
3. Ensure legality of competition
Legal issues as mentioned in the last point are some of the more common issues, but the vast array of business lawsuits are primarily filed in the cases of breaching confidentiality or and the employee going to another competitor with information that could lead to unfair competition. Luckily, the employer has plenty of power against confidentiality breaches if they were proactive and had conditions set in place for such scenarios.
4. Duty of loyalty
An issue many companies face is employees lining up to work with another firm with similar interests and transferring clients and sales to their new company before finishing their work with the previous company. Commonly known as a duty of loyalty, precautions like these legally forbid the sharing of information before termination so if any information or assets were transferred before the employee left your company could very easily take them to court.
5. Maintain a positive relationship
While most of the previous points have been about the legal aspects and various court instances that would cause chaos for any companies involved, maintaining a friendly and positive relationship with previous employees will relieve tension in the future and encourage fair competition among companies. Making sure to treat the individual with respect and understanding will also encourage them not to break any contracts due to the nature of your positive relationship
Conclusion
With many laws and restrictions placed on both employers and employees, it is always best to leave any legal issues to the experts and remember to maintain positive relationships with everyone you work with to prevent the chance for any unfair competition in the future.