Here's my suggestion. When you receive the document, read it and see if there's a noncompete clause. If so, you're going to want to send a redlined version back to them, changing the noncompete duration from "during and for 2 years following employment at the company" (or whatever they gave you) to "for the duration of employment at the company." By doing so, you show your willingness not to do any kind of work for a competitor while employed, while very clearly pointing out that you do have the right to get a new job. It may be important not to offend the person who wrote up the agreement and included something so ridiculous, so the minor nature of your modification will allow them to save face.
In the end, most employers won't bother to argue the second point, and the ones that do are probably shadily taking advantage of you in other ways.
Additional note: in California and several other states, these clauses are not legally enforceable anyway, and you should mention that when you give them the "fixed" agreement.
I've tried that cute "strike out the stuff in your employment agreement that you don't agree to" move, and in ALL cases, received a stern note from the corporate legal department a few days later basically saying "Sign it unmodified or GTFO." I don't know who all you Captains Of Industry are who have the power to negotiate these things, but I've found employees basically have no ability to change them.
Admittedly I'm on the upper end of the experience scale, but I think there's a lot more wiggle room than most people realize. Also, this is a pretty decent litmus test for an organization - I would avoid companies run by their legal departments.
In a big company the manager wanting to hire you might not have the power to overrule the legal department. In a smaller company however you might get hired by the CTO or CEO himself, the contract has been written by a contractor lawyer and if we wants you he'll change the terms.
I just explained my case logically, respectfully and directly (face to face) to my line manager. My case was:
- Its understood that I will not work a second job. Though I will volunteer for some charity.
- Considering my domain expertise, I am more likely to get a job in a similar domain. If my future employer demands me to implement the same tech as my pervious employer, its a red flag that this company is clueless and will sink soon. If I volunteer the details of my previous companies operations, it just means that I am untrustworthy and I will not be trusted in the new company. So sharing details of my previous job is a bad idea.
The 4th company manager was not even willing to discuss with me about my agreement and wanted me to go to the legal dept directly. That was clear sign that this was a very bureaucratic and not suited for me.
Of course, I have only worked in small to medium sized company and they was no secret algorithms worth in the millions or billions involved. That I am sure is a different case, like the current Google vs Uber over the tech stolen by Otto from Waymo.
You can negotiate successfully with the former, but not the latter.
Of course I have the advantage of living in a place where there's plenty of work. If jobs are scarce where you live, that significantly changes the labour market.
When contracts are redlined in any way, even relatively small companies have procedures in place to require review by the legal counsel. As soon as you introduce lawyers, the delays kick in and nobody is happy.
A company is paying me to work for them, they're not paying to own me. When I'm off the clock, my time is my own, up to and including doing paid work for anyone else I want.
I'd make an exception if they increased my pay accordingly. But considering that they're asking for 4.2x more of my time than usual, they'd better be paying me at least 4.2x a normal full-time salary.
I do have a little experience with making changes to contracts that the other party doesn't want to change, and to that end I'd like to add two more things. First, it's likely they'll use the phrase "standard contract" and say that it just can't be changed. Second, if you've gotten that far, it's quite likely they'll change your minds if you stick to your guns. It's tempting to cave in when they say "sorry, we can't accept changes," but don't.
If nothing else, it is very important that you keep the right to move up and out to a new job. That's the point you should focus on. In a realistic full-time first job, you're not going to work for a competitor at the same time, so it is fine to tell them you won't if that helps the two sides reach agreement.
Good point about not taking "this is the standard agreement" for an answer. That's not good enough. Say you understand that it's a boilerplate legal document, and you'd be more than happy to give them a couple days to double-check your proposed change with their boss, counsel, or whoever they need to. Again, be firm while giving them an avenue to save face, and wait for them to call back with a sudden change of heart.
At least one of the reasons for a non-compete clause is to make sure you're not doing stuff on the clock for your employer, and then getting double-paid by a competitor for essentially the same end result but without the competitor having to pay for the whole process of getting that result. Like, if they're paying you to spend 40 hours a week learning about the key problems in their industry and designing and implementing solutions, and then a competitor hires you for 10 hours a week to re-implement those solutions (not paying for the learning/designing phases). So the competitor is getting the benefit of work you're doing that in some sense should belong to your main employer.
There might be something better than a non-compete clause for that sort of scenario, I just don't know what it is.
Suboptimal if you're working for a direct competitor. Standard conflict of interest stuff. Would you accept Donald Trump working for Russia on the night shift?
Remember, non-compete is not the same as IP clause - which says anything you create on the job (and potentially off the job) is owned by the company.
I wonder what would happen if you said "Ah, so you're stipulating that it's a contract of adhesion. I'd like that in writing, please."
Contracts of adhesion can be harder to enforce [0].
(IANAL, and I'm not necessarily recommending doing this, but I am curious what kind of response one would be likely to get.)
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_form_contract#Contrac...
Now, you can argue that it's not your employer's business what you do off the clock, but it at least provides a way to protect yourself from falling foul of the agreement and having the company later claim ownership of your work. The key though is to ensure that you don't do any personal work on a company laptop - I believe once you do that all bets are off.
As an employee, every company I've ever worked for has given me one. Few have been negotiable, but pretty much all have openly stated/agreed they weren't enforceable in CA when I raised concerns.
True. But said company may not want your experience, let alone anything you learn about their business, to benefit competitors. Indeed, they may consider your training with them to be an investment, which gives them rights about what you do with it.
The fact that we work in a field where your hobby might quite often be productive work to the extent that it could compete with your day job is an extreme privilege and is to be treated as such.
That said, these things are often malleable, and that's a good thing to be aware of, but grandstanding on "4.2x salary" just makes you look entitled.
Who in the software industry still gets offers like that? Everyone I know gets a DocuSign PDF they sign digitally. There's no opportunity to alter the document.
There is basically no non-confrontational way to do this. If a software developer has a competing offer, sure, leverage it. Otherwise, I think the only realistic remedy is a state-wide or nation-wide legal protection.
"In rare cases where a person still hesitated to sign his or her name, I might add 'The legal people won't approve of any changes'. Keep in mind that the legal people didn't even know they wouldn't approve of any changes. Nevertheless, the phrase worked like a charm, since 'legal people' projects, on a wide screen, a powerful image of legitimacy. One theoretically doesn't fool around with the legal people."
Part of the magic of contracts is that everyone seems to believe they are magic. But a contract is simply an agreement between two parts. You are more than welcome to suggest changes to it.
As for the PDF, just because the company makes it harder for you to change its terms it doesn't mean that you can't still do it. For an extreme case, this guy[1] scanned a credit card contract, modified its terms, and send the modified application back. He then sued the bank, and won (they settled during a later appeal).
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/borrowing...
Only if you're very inexperienced will this be tricky, once you're senior nobody bats an eye when I ask for things to be changed in the contract.
A contract is part of communicating how we will work together. Demonstrate that you're competent by clearly communicating the changes you want and why you want them and if they react back poorly then you dodged a major bullet, since they'll also communicate poorly in day to day functions.
I'm not saying you'll always get what you want, but there should never be anger, and just because you're sent a signable document via DocuSign doesn't mean you have to sign that version of it.
If they're cool with it, sign the clean employment agreement together on the spot. Make copies and you're done.
This is assertive. But it's not "confrontational." And if your employer withdraws the offer because of it, it's a huge red flag and you're lucky. But I've never seen an offer revoked for asking questions.
If you have more leverage, then you can be more "confrontational." You might want to mark up the agreement (or have a lawyer do it) and send back. That may seem a bit more forward, but you can certainly do it.
Please don't think you can't question what your employer puts in front of you. Maybe they won't revise the agreement for you, but it's worth trying if you have concerns.
Usually, this involves removing clauses about not having other employment or side work, which are a non-starter for me. One employer added an appendix full of "exceptions", saying "all side work is allowed, not further authorization required."
Be reasonable, and you will likely get most of what you want. If they are unreasonable, you're probably better off working somewhere else.
If you're not ready for the company to walk away, be careful with this approach.
Imagine you are getting your dream job at Amazon.com and someone is telling you to negotiate or discuss this part. Large companies are much less willing to accept anything like this.
However, in your defense, I am pretty sure that negotiating in itself doesn't cause any harm to your opportunity to be hired.
In a world where employees have even an ounce of power, this might change, but we don't live in that world. Even in the software world, what new hire has any power whatsoever to negotiate their employment agreement? You're at your weakest: You have no track record yet at the company, few to no allies, and there is a line of other applicants out the door who would be thrilled to have your job offer. From the company's point of view, why should they bother with you if you're already being difficult?
Are they gonna tell you over some barbeque, "Hey by the way Bill you know and I know that we can't TECHNICALLY enforce the clause preventing you from working in this industry for two years after leaving your position with us but we both know that it was very shitty of you to take a job in this same sector."
Who's going to say that with a straight face? Is there a moral aspect?
If there's no moral aspect, why do you have to revise unenforceable clauses? ("let sleeping dogs lie.")
I wanted to make sure the proverb I said was what I meant, this is the dictionary definition that came up: "avoid interfering in a situation that is currently causing no problems but may well do so as a result of such interference."
Doesn't that describe redlining unenforceable clauses you don't like?
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EDIT: Thanks for the replies guys. I was specifically asking about California. I think the replies give good reasons why you should redline unenforceable clauses (and this comment has been downvoted, but I'm keeping it for context for others reading the thread.)
Also, they generally don't track you down at a barbecue. They'll try to tell the company you are jumping ship to that your employment there would be illegal, as TSG Finishing did. The future employer will then have to send back strongly worded letters clarifying California employment law. Frankly, you want to avoid that whole mess in advance.
The Employee shall throughout the duration of this employment contract and for a period of one year after termination thereof, not be engaged or involved in any manner, directly or indirectly, whether on the account of the Employee or on the account of third parties, in any enterprise which conducts activities in a field similar to or otherwise competing with that of [COMPANY NAME] and/or its affiliates, nor act, in any manner whatsoever, directly or indirectly, whether on his own behalf or for third parties, as an intermediary in relation to such activities. This obligation applies solely to any work activities or involvement of you within the territory of Europe.
It requires the non competes clause to define duration, geographical scope and explanation why the interests of the employee require it.
Not sure it was altogether thrown away.
Actually there is a third reason: An employee leaves and takes proprietary tech to a competitor.
The standard answer is: Well that's what an NDA/Confidentiality clause is for so you don't need to worry about that.
Unfortunately it doesn't really work like that. You can't just purge your brain of something you've been working on for months or years. On top of that it's nearly impossible to prove that a confidentiality infringement was made unless code or hardware was straight up exported/copied and implemented.
Especially in the case where a megacorp hires away someone from a startup, the startup can't reasonably sue megacorp for this type of thing because it would cost too much and be basically a total loss.
Effectively it happens like this:
Employee 1 was implementing a novel computer vision algo for Startup X.
Megacorp approaches Employee 1 with 3x salary offer and stock.
Employee 1 leaves startup to work on a similar project for megacorp.
Startup can't ask what Employee 1 is working on because Employee 1 and Megacorp have an NDA.
Megacorp comes out with a new product that implements the algo, except it was implemented by the team Employee 1 was on which had been working on the same problem for a while and not just Employee 1 themselves.
I've seen this happen first hand, so it's not like it doesn't go on.
There are a million "reasons" why people are ok with this situation and just blame it on the startup not being competitive with salary, but increasingly that's basically impossible.
Non competes aren't intrinsically shady or evil. Some companies have business models that depend very heavily on secret IP. It's just another adverse factor you have to add into the mix when evaluating a job, along with compensation, work-life balance, advancement opportunities, etc. Many non-competes are very well compensated, and limited in scope to a particular niche industry, so you could still go off and work anywhere else in tech industry where your IP cannot be used against your old employer. Signing one isn't the worst thing in the world.
Secondly, while there do exist well-compensated noncompetes for executives and other high-value employees -- and I don't think anyone here is arguing against those either -- the vast majority are not compensated at all, except that the employee gets the job in the first place.
If they're not paying you while you're not allowed to work in your field, yes, they are. And unfortunately that's a lot of them. If you're being paid to sit in your backyard or do something in a another field, that's a different story.
I can't say if you're right or wrong about this, but personally I'm pessimistic about the claim.
The issue with requiring your employer to make it only be for the duration of the employment is many companies don't want you to learn about their customers, and methods and trade secrets and then quit to set up a business in the same area . . . which is reasonable. Non compete clauses are allowed in most jurisdiction so long as they are reasonable as to duration (don't last too long after employment) and reasonable as to distance (only cover a limited geographical area)
In most contracts that are for companies that are across states, you'll see this clause marked with a "Not applicable in California."
http://www.socalinternetlawyer.com/non-compete-agreements-ca...
The only reason big companies offer health insurance is because it limits employees's freedom. It would be easy for the Fortune 100 or 200 in unison agree to eliminate health care and provide a higher salaries. It would make the companies more competitive globally and it would free them from a whole lot of other nonsense, but they don't drop healthcare. The reason they don't droop healthcare is because healthcare and pre-existing conditions limit employee options and it suppresses wages. Also if there was universal healthcare it would be easier to start small companies and attract employees, those small business would be competing for employees against big companies on equal footing.
Healthcare is a racket limiting not just healthcare but freedom.
Some big companies may prefer it this way, but a lot of others with plenty of political clout (e.g. carmakers) don't. On the whole, that's not a major reason employer-provided healthcare is still afflicting us.
The fact that Healthcare is tied to employment is downright shocking to virtually all developed countries.
In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the healthcare burden in the US is from patients without employment. Medicare and Medicaid are some of the largest funds out there.
http://fightthefuture.org/article/returning-to-america-and-t...
America wants you to work. Work work work work work. Our European neighbours can save up and take a few months off every few years and not have to worry about health care. In America, we only get socialised healthcare when we're too old to work and are no longer useful to society.
Europeans hate work. Hate hate hate hate[2]. They hate work and elect politicians who also hate work.
That major (cultural? economic? social? political?) difference between American and European attitudes towards work might explain these statistics:
American vs EU unemployment rate: 4.7% vs 8.2% American vs EU youth unemployment rate: 9.4% vs 17.3% American vs EU GDP per capita: $56k vs $35k
And so on.
Point being, things are only the way they are because we want them to be that way--and elect politicians who do as well.
That said, I agree with the core premise: corporate-sponsored healthcare is a lousy drag on the economy...
[1] http://www.projecttimeoff.com/news/press-releases/americans-... [2] https://www.etui.org/Topics/Trade-union-renewal-and-mobilisa...
http://fightthefuture.org/article/returning-to-america-and-t...
I just read your post and my mind boggled at a $200 premium, $6,000 deductible and something about co-pay.
I am 35 and don't even understand that last term, because I should not have to.
Healthcare should be about health, not money.
If Americans already pay more to the gov for healthcare than countries with universal healthcare, why doesn't it exist in America?
It's more complicated than that. Offering healthcare in large groups which are likely to be diverse agewise, has considerable benefits for insurers. If people have to privately insure there's a tendency to forgo insurance unless you're in higher risk of being sick. Which increases average costs. Hence the ACA non-insurance tax etc.
> Also if there was universal healthcare it would be easier to start small companies and attract employees
Yea, absolutely. I really miss that after having moved to the US from Germany.
The advantage of being at a small company is you have greater growth opportunity. The advantage of being at a big company is greater steady state benefits and salaries.
It's been shown that statistically, it makes more sense to work at a big company from the perspective of expected value. But not a very exciting way to live :)
Employment creates a 'risk pool', specifically one that people are unlikely to join just to get insurance. It is one of very few ways to mitigate the "adverse selection" problem, i. e. only old and/or sick people getting insurance, thereby raising prices, and repeat. The other way is an insurance mandate, or, if you want to cut the chase, single-payer tax-funded healthcare for all.
The purpose of insurance is to amortize the cost of unpredictable things across time and population. Group plans are just another way to select higher quality (lower cost) people for the plan. Of course this means higher than average cost for programs like medicare.
I felt morally OK with the situation...
Only, my contract did have a noncompete. But then, this is Sweden, and noncompete clauses are almost not enforceable by Swedish law. An employer can't stop an employee to take another position. To be a valid clause, an employer must offer the same payment the new position would have had whilst riding out the non-work period, and no one does that.
A strongly worded letter from my lawyer sorted it. Never heard from them again.
Not to say you necessarily did anything wrong, since I don't know anything about your situation except for your comment. But take a "typical" case similar to yours, and look at if from the employer's point of view. They give you access to stability (a salary), office/equipment, potentially training, potentially their reputation. All of which helps you get a client and focus solely on the client.
If, after all their investment, you can walk off with the client, depriving them of the income that they would've earned, then that makes it less likely for future employers to make these kinds of investments in people.
(Again, this is the generic case for non-solicitation/non-compete, your particular case could be totally different in all the ways that matter).
In this case it may make sense to pay a former employee to do nothing for one year until his knowledge of internal tech is no longer confidential because published or released.
- When you quit, tell your now former employer that you're quitting to pursue something other than what was your established industry. Your (made up) lifelong dream of starting your own microbrew brand, Macrome supply business, winery, whatever. Or looking after a sick relative, or going back to school full time, etc.
- Cut off ties with all your former coworkers, at least for the noncompete duration. If you bump into them at the grocery store and you can't get away from them, tell them about how wonderful the beer business is or how your relative is doing.
- Don't put on Facebook or Linkedin that you work for the new employer.
- For the duration of the non-compete, only those closest to you who critically need to know about your new employer, spouse, etc will know.
- Avoid publicly-facing industry related activities that tie you to your new employer for the duration of the noncompete. Giving speeches, presentations, writing article, etc.
None of these are foolproof but they are all common sense. Remember the Monty Python sketch about How To Not Be Seen.
The only thing you have to do, is when people ask you where you work, just say "I'm under NDA. Can't talk about it.".
Or keep it vague. "I am a web developer". Something like that.
No need to get rid of your friends, or hide, or anything like that.
Just simply don't talk about work, and I can assure you that nobody is going to come after you.
I'm surprised that this isn't law. I guess financial companies care about their employees more and/or their employees are more astute about contracts.
Companies shouldn't be allowed to prevent their ex-employees from earning a living. If it's that important for them to prevent the transfer of their proprietary information, they should be happy to pay for it.
https://www.geekwire.com/2017/scaled-back-bill-aimed-providi...
Apparently Google and labor unions supported the original bill, but the article says that's not the case for Amazon and Microsoft
The scaled back bill removed those points:
> Make noncompetition agreements void if the employee is a temporary or seasonal employee, or is terminated without just cause or laid off.
> Create a rebuttable presumption that agreements restricting competition for more than one year after termination of employment or for employees who are not executives are unreasonable.
> Make noncompetition agreements with independent contractors void
Wait, seriously? One can be laid off but still barred from working for a competitor? Grateful to live in CA but that makes me ill on behalf of the rest of the country.
Any state that wants to attract more technology companies should start by copying California policy on noncompetes. Yes, existing businesses will fight it tooth and nail, but it will make for a stronger economy.
The problem is that some states allow non-competes without compensations and most employees sign everything in front of them.
This week a startup asked me to interview for a contract gig. Before the interview they sent me a 3 year NDA. I responded that I'm not signing an NDA to interview for a job, I have no idea what they will tell me and I'm not going to limit my future clients/work options just because we had a conversation. They backed down and we had a high level discussion and I told them to get someone else.
Another option is always to modify the agreement. In the case of the NDA I was prepared to x out the 3 year term and replace it with a one year term and initial it in that state before signing. If they didn't like it, fine.
If I may nitpick, I'd argue that it only appears to be in employers' best interest to use/enforce them, in the same way that the butts-in-seats/time-in-office metrics are used to gauge performance. It makes sense in a first-pass estimation but breaks down when one considers the cultural impacts. People tend to dislike feeling powerless, which is exactly the effect of non-competes.
http://www.beckreedriden.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/nonc...
Even in CA, trade secrets have an exception.
http://www.weil.com/articles/the-trade-secrets-exception-to-...
Yes, and that's the rub. I've had several recruiters respond with, "oh don't worry, that's not enforceable" when I objected to an onerous NCC in a contract they presented me with. My response was "perhaps, but you could use it to drag me through the courts and make my life hell, so remove it altogether, or we're done here."
In each case, it was after I had verbally accepted a verbal offer. And in each case, they removed the NCC.
But you might not ever get there. In my experience, nasty employers will directly contact and threaten the employee's new employer, which can result in the employee being fired (or maybe never hired in the first place).
http://www.shpclaw.com/Schwartz-Resources/massachusetts-cour...
Noncompetes, viewed in a vacuum, are lopsided towards the employer by design. Which is why they are (ideally) counterbalanced by increased pay or other concessions to the employee.
Needless to say I am not a web developer anymore.
I'm so glad that tomorrow I'll be handing in my two weeks notice especially at a critical time for the company. I'm also the most senior developer that everyone else comes to with questions regarding how the system works and how it can be improved. The original developers left for similar reasons.
What I'm trying to say is, if you think, as a business owner or employer that you can act against the best interests of your employees then you'll end up paying dearly for it one way or another.
Actually, I think it's a hallmark of a free society where consenting adults are able to enter into, or not, any agreements they choose. The problem is that some people make bad choices in the agreements they commit to, or they enter them in bad faith, not intending to honor them, and when the chickens come to roost, we're instructed to feel sorry for them by writers at the New York Times.
You think having your life controlled by a corporation is a sign of a free society?
If I put a gun to your head, and you then 'consent' to an agreement where you give me money, and I don't shoot you, is that a hallmark of free society?
Of course you do.
I think that the US as a whole should follow California in outlawing non-competes. It definitely has been shown to be workable.
I think the place where you're doing the recruiting (another company's staff versus the public) is what makes hiring a person from another company poaching in one case, while the same person being recruited from the general job market wouldn't be.
Its pointless anyway, a first year law student will just rewrite as non-circumvent + no-solicit + NDA agreements.
As a simple example, the Jimmy John's sandwich chain had a no-compete for their employees. Do you think the average person making subs is as comfortable walking away from a job as the company is telling them the terms aren't negotiable?
My favorite fix would simply to be requiring full compensation for the entire term. Intel would pay an architect to sit on the beach rather than work for AMD but nobody would think of trying that for the average developer.
Because those voluntary contracts affect the economy as a whole. By preventing the worker from making use of even their non-proprietary general knowledge, they make the economy less efficient -- especially so when it comes to the formation of new ventures.
And empirically, prohibiting noncompetes works. I understand that California, if we were a separate country, would have the world's seventh (or sixth?) largest economy. I certainly would be very hesitant to accept a job offer in any other state. (Well, someone posted upthread that North Dakota and Oklahoma also prohibit noncompetes, but I don't think I want to live in either of those places, for other reasons.)
Because any analysis of contracts that does not take into account the relative power of the parties entering them is an incredibly naive one.
The law has always recognized public policy considerations that sometimes outweigh the benefit of enforcing a particular contract.
I'd be shocked if you didn't agree with some of examples of such contracts. For example, if A contracts with B for B to murder C, A cannot sue B for breaching that contract.
California decided that the public policy of fostering freedom to practice one's profession outweighs the interest in enforcing contractual non-compete provisions. You may not agree.
But, in the end, this is all about public policy goals. Framing the question as about the "state preventing two people voluntarily entering into a contract" isn't quite correct. The question really is whether the state should get itself involved in ENFORCING a particular agreement. Generally, the state will do so because a functioning economy is dependent upon enforceable contracts. But that is just one public policy interest to be weighed against others in particular instances.
But this is interesting, I work in an area of the company that isn't really part of their core competency. Meaning that the kinds of firms that would hire me are literally in another sector and wouldn't be considered competitors.
So this fact, that normally manifests as complaints that "management has no idea what we do here" and/or that they "have no business claiming they're in this business," ends up helping me out.
Here's a relevant quote (in which the author is actually quoting Aaron McNay):
" Both employers and employees would like to be able to train the employees if the cost of doing so is less than the gains in productivity. However, there is a potential collective action problem here. What happens if the employer provides the training, but the employee then moves onto another job? The employer bears the burden of the training costs, but does not receive any of the benefits. As a result, the employer does not provide the training, and a mutually beneficial trade is not made.
By preventing the employee from being able to move, a non-compete agreement eliminates the collective action problem."
I'm not saying that non-competes are necessarily good, or necessarily bad. It depends on the circumstances. But I do think that a lot of other commenters in this thread do think that non-competes are necessarily bad, and I think that's incorrect.
I don't see how non-competes are a desirable alternative, because they're orthogonal to the training costs problem.
* It started from the start of the contract/end of the initial training. * It was for a period much shorter than 2 years * It was voided if the employer terminated the contract
After all, for high enough salaries, I'd probably agree to very onerous terms.
Specfically about your list, I think the reason the period doesn't usually start from the end of training, but rather the end of employment, is that it is assumed you continue to have access to more training / more confidential information, even if you work for a company for longer than the few months of training. And I certainly hope most people work in a job in which they continue to grow/learn.
As for voiding if the contract if the employee is fired, why make that a condition? Wouldn't that just mean the bar for hiring new employees would be even higher, because if they don't work out, you're both wasting lots of investment, and also running the risk of them taking your methods to a new company?
If it is that important to the company the employee should be remunerated
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/03/28/ndas-and-contracts...
Generally noncompetes are fairly widespread to varying extents. The default seems to be that you can't compete with your employer while you are employed (whether it's by freelancing on the side, poaching their customers or directly working for another competitor) though in practice employers will generally grant you permission to have a side-job as long as there's no conflict of interest and it doesn't impact your job performance.
However noncompetes terminate once the employment ends. The only way to extend the duration of the noncompete is by having the contract also reimburse you for the duration of that extended noncompete. Both sides can agree to lift that extension but if it's in the contract, the employer will likely have to pay for a certain amount of time whether they want to enforce the noncompete or not.
So in other words, while there may be scenarios where noncompetes impact your ability to find another job while still employed, the second your employment terminates, you're either free or continually being paid an appropriate sum of money.
As a freelancer I had clients that insisted on some form of noncompete, but these were generally only protecting them from me "skipping the middleman" and working for their customers directly -- which even without noncompetes would have created some dodgy situations.
I've actually seen multiple major consulting companies (often international ones or subsidiaries of international ones) that explicitly required a noncompete so vague that it would have practically prevented me from working for any company in the industry while also working for them -- because there would have been just no easy way for me to tell whether I was accidentally working for one of their customers or not. I never signed those but considering that certain companies like to just put into contracts whatever they would love to be able to do without any concern for validity or enforceability, I wonder what the legal situation around those would have looked like.
Just because someone gives you a piece of paper to sign, doesn't mean you have to. Wait until it's unavoidable.
Stuff like, not being able to take current customers to a competing business within a mile for a period of 1 year is considered reasonable.
Right to work has nothing to do with noncompete contracts.
It means that you cannot be forced to join a union.
Edit: I did speak with a few attorneys. But they all wanted cash up front. And told me that I had little chance of success.
At some point in your career you are going to have to negotiate over terms in your contract. Best to get practice in as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
Pound sand.
So I was back on the street 2 weeks later.
- Sign the minimum of documents
- Don't provide full, personally-identifying information unless it's absolutely required
- Negotiate terms of boilerplate agreements if they're too unreasonable / don't apply
- Don't sign a binding arbitration agreement, BA is a worthless/corrupt system that nearly always favors the employer. [0]
- For CA-headquartered companies, refuse to sign NCAs because it creates legal liabilities (ie, could they involuntarily transfer an employee to another state and then fire them to make an NCA apply?)
0. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/business/dealbook/arbitra...
