A contract of employment must be given to an employee before they start their role. Tribunals can award up to 4 weeks pay to an employee without a contract.
With employees moving companies more often than ever, potentially to your competitors, protecting your company and client data is important. Check that your contract of employments includes the following provisions:
- Restricted covenants – this limits an employee’s freedom to do certain things whilst working for you or after they have left your employment. It can include restricting ex-employees from joining competitors and poaching your clients. This restriction can only last a certain amount of time and cannot be unreasonable i.e., insisting that the individual is never able to work for a competitor!
- Confidentiality clause – this is used to protect your data and information such as a client list or intellectual property. The employee will not be able to disclose this information whilst working for you or after they have left their employment.
If your organisation has very sensitive data or the employee is required to keep aspects of their role confidential, for example, they build new products or services, you may wish to consider asking the employee to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).
Please note that NDA’s and confidentiality clauses cannot prevent an individual from raising ‘whistleblowing’ claims or reporting crimes to the police.