Practical Tips From Gronsky Law Office

How Do You Stop Your Employees From Stealing Your Business Secrets?

Your business may have special information that gives will be used to create a new product. Or you may have a special way of marketing that gets you more business. Trade secrets can also include your list of customers. How do you stop your employees from stealing your trade secrets?

When you hire a new employee, you should have that employee sign a non-disclosure agreement. In this legal document, your employee agrees to keep all of your business secrets confidential. The agreement should provide that, if the employee violates the agreement that you can go to court to stop him. Or you can get money damages from your employee (usually your ex-employee by then).

When your employee leaves your business, you should conduct an exit interview and remind this person that they are still bound by the terms of the non disclosure agreement that they signed.

You should also make sure that your business secrets are revealed only to those employees who need to know the secrets. They should not be freely made known to everyone in your company.

Finally, you should keep your trade secrets under lock and key, either physically or in computer files that are password-protected.

You should always protect the information that gives you an advantage over your competition. Create your strategies before you need to go to court to protect your business from an untrustworthy employee.

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