Employment law questions- employment consultant?

Cari

The first one is not a trick question. If the employer chooses to include a "witness" section in the contract, then they can do so. I know that my employer used to include this (not sure if they still do). However, I don't believe that it's a legal requirement.

With regard to the second one, it's quite common for employers to include a "non-compete" agreeement in an employment contract. This will typically mean that once you leave that company, you cannot work for named competitors or clients for a period of time. As an example, all Yahoo! employees are forbidden from going to work for MSN. I believe that in the US such a clause would normally come with geographical limits (e.g. you can't work for a competitor within 50 miles) but in the UK it tends not to, probably because it's a smaller country.

In practice, it's actually very difficult to enforce such a clause, and in some cases an employer doesn't want to bother anyway. As an example, my employer had to let some people go when we lost a big client, so decided that it would not be fair to enforce this on them.

simplesimon

1) No you do not need to have it witnessed. Indeed, its pretty unlikely that either employer or employee would ever be in a situation where they claimed not to be bound by the contract as it was fraudulently signed in their absence. The duty would be on the employer to ensure that it was done correctly, with the employees full understanding.

2) It is not feasible. You cannot prevent your employees talking to othe employers, and a former employee will be well placed to know who to target if they think there is scope to 'poach' talent.

On what grounds would you be getting an injunction on? They are not breaking any laws in looking for employees. Head hunting / poaching is an accepted business practice.

The only scope to manage this sort of activity is in the original employee contracts - both the person who has moved on, and your current ones who could be talking to them. If you are asking the question now, I imagine it isn't in there - and isn't something you can look to retrosepctively enforce.

I think in this instance, if you are worried about losing staff, you need to focus much more on posotive retention initiatives rather than negative 'blocking' ones. How are your employees going to feel if its clear you've blanket denied them progression / promotion in another company?

Earthangel

There is no witness section to the employment contract - you both agree to the conditions and sign it.

Not sure how you could obtain a court injunction to stop poaching of staff - but what you might consider in the future is to put clause in the employment contract that if the person leaves they cannot approach your suppliers/customers for a period of time (usually 2 years). I should check this out from a solicitor but i have seen it done in one of my past jobs.

russell c

if the contract has a u cant contact clients or staff section or you cant work with in such a distance ect ect then you can enforce it ,, if it doesn't than you need to sort new ones

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