Minimizing the Risk of Employee Departure
You’ve worked hard to build your business. You’ve developed products or services and the processes, policies, and strategies which drive them. So what do you do when a key employee tells you he/she will be leaving? How do you protect the business systems you’ve worked so hard to develop?
Planning for Inevitable Employee Departure
Hopefully, you had your key employee execute a confidentiality clause when you hired them. A confidentiality clause (or agreement) requires the person signing it to keep certain information strictly confidential. Ideally, it sets forth the type of information you consider to be a trade secret. You may later use this agreement to protect against competition or disclosure of your trade secrets in the future.
If your key employee is planning to start a business to compete with you or to go to work for a competitor, a noncompetition clause will put you in a position of strength. You can even base a lawsuit on a non-compete clause, although usually only within a limited geographic area and for a limited time period.
Before the Employee Leaves
To further strengthen your position, before the employee departs, do the following:
- Determine whether you want to keep the employee. If you do, find out why he/she wants to leave and address those issues.
- Review any applicable agreements with the employee and clearly set forth your expectation that they will comply.
- Determine where the employee is going. If they are accepting new employment with a competitor, put the competitor on notice of your areas of concern and your intent to hold the employee to any applicable agreements that relate to your trade secrets.
Dealing with Employee Departure Aftermath
If these measures do not work, you may need to bring a lawsuit to protect your trade secrets. To be successful, you must be able to show that you took reasonable measures to protect your trade secrets. Our focus is keeping you out of court and out of conflict.
This article is a service of Bridge Law LLP. We are an award-winning law firm that specializes in business and estate planning for clients like you. The goal for every family is to stay educated on all topics like this, avoid probate, avoid estate taxes, and build a legacy for you and your loved ones. What sets our firm apart is that we build lasting, lifelong relationships with our clients. They rely on us to keep them updated, provide sound legal counsel, and be there for them immediately if any problems should ever arise. The best part is we don’t charge hourly fees to our families, so you never have to worry about speaking to us. If you’re ready to keep your family out of Court, contact us today to schedule an initial consultation or visit our website at www.bridgelawllp.com.