Don’t let your valuable corporate assets and proprietary information walk out the door when an employee leaves the company.

This policy, written by Scott Matteson for TechRepublic Premium, provides the framework for a non-compete agreement with employees so that they understand what knowledge and skills they can and can’t take with them if they depart the business to work elsewhere. It is intended to be reasonable and fair for both parties.

Featured text from the policy:

DEFINITION OF PRIVATE COMPANY INFORMATION

This non-compete agreement is designed to protect the organization’s business interests and/or proprietary trade secrets, hereby defined as “private company information.” This information can include, but is not restricted to, company processes, customer lists, external contacts, programming or trade secrets, financial histories and projections, product management strategies, marketing campaigns and other types of confidential, proprietary business data, which if misused or leaked, could cause harm to the organization.

A good rule of thumb to determine what material fits the criteria of private company information is to evaluate whether the information is publicly shared or kept for internal use only. The latter instance quite likely falls under the category of private company information, especially if it is restricted to certain internal personnel.

It is recognized that employee job duties will involve their exposure to or creation of private company information. Employees must keep this information strictly confidential both during and after their period of employment with the organization, regardless of whether they are the creator, author or designer of this information. All such material created during their term of employment remains the property of the company unless otherwise stated or an exception is permitted in writing by the employee’s manager and any related departments.

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TIME SAVED: Crafting this content required 12 hours of dedicated writing, editing and research.