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Hawaii Bans Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Clauses in High-Tech Employment

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Re: Hawaii Bans Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Clauses in High-Tech Employment

#121

Post by cmdkeen »

aidenn0 wrote: post #86
themartorana wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always found it weird when employers wanted to start a relationship entirely adversarially. I also found it weird when businesses identified employees as a significant and therefore negative cost center. Employees are life blood. If they aren't, get rid of them and get new life blood - but being so standoffish and adversarial is the antithesis of what an employer/employee relationship should be.

A lot of management techniques come out of the manufacturing industry that was the backbone of the US economy until 1980ish. For manufacturing, it does sometimes make sense to treat employees as a cost center, rather than an asset. Even for manufacturing, however, this was a significant simplification (but likely a good trade-off in the days before visicalc).

And then along came Japan with Kaizen and demonstrated that assembly line employees can be used to add value.

Japan is probably a very interesting case study in employer / employee loyalty. I'm sure patio11 could have plenty to add.

Re: Hawaii Bans Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Clauses in High-Tech Employment

#122

Post by skarap »

This is good development!

I'm not sure how effective the law will be though. As others mentioned, those agreements are hard/impossible to enforce in court, part of the reason of which is that they are completely one-sided, vague and almost enslaving (we own whatever you create also in your own time, can't compete directly/indirectly for 10 years after leaving, can't use anything your learned while working for us...). But what stops the ex-employer accusing the ex-employee of stealing trade secrets and keep them in courts for ~3 years (and forcing to spend hundreds of thousands)? Cause, you know, it's hard to litigate with someone who has a few orders of magnitude more resources than you do.

As for non-solicit - I have a different opinion. Have seen companies breaking apart because some of the middle-managers/team leads decided to leave the company and take their team and the clients (with whom they had direct contact) with them. E.g. that's how Lycos Armenia's history ended.

Re: Hawaii Bans Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Clauses in High-Tech Employment

#123

Post by Sharlin »

mcherm wrote: post #21
kuschku wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How the hell can that be legal? That would be the legal equivalent to a person working in a factory and doing the same stuff as hobby at home not owning the products he made at home. Doesn’t this infringe at least a few universal human rights? o.O

It is not accurate. Your employer owns all intellectual property you create on or off work (meaning you technically can't contribute to Wikipedia or most open source projects) and even owns the bedtime stories you make up to tell your children, but ONLY if you sign a contract saying so. By pointing out the above cases I have gotten an employer (not in NY) to alter the language of their IP contract.

The point is that some contracts are unenforceable. It is impossible to give up some rights in a legally binding way.

Re: Hawaii Bans Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Clauses in High-Tech Employment

#124

Post by dia80 »

skarap wrote: post #122

This is good development! I'm not sure how effective the law will be though. As others mentioned, those agreements are hard/impossible to enforce in court, part of the reason of which is that they are completely one-sided, vague and almost enslaving (we own whatever you create also in your own time, can't compete directly/indirectly for 10 years after leaving, can't use anything your learned while working for us...).…

This only possible because companies want to be able to fire their employees quickly so that means the employees can leave quickly. I know of one place (in the UK) with a one year notice term. You can't leave quickly so their business is secure but you are secure too as they have to give 12 months notice before letting you go.

Re: Hawaii Bans Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Clauses in High-Tech Employment

#125

Post by skarap »

dia80 wrote: post #124
skarap wrote: post #122

This is good development! I'm not sure how effective the law will be though. As others mentioned, those agreements are hard/impossible to enforce in court, part of the reason of which is that they are completely one-sided, vague and almost enslaving (we own whatever you create also in your own time, can't compete directly/indirectly for 10 years after leaving, can't use anything your learned while working for us...).…

This only possible because companies want to be able to fire their employees quickly so that means the employees can leave quickly. I know of one place (in the UK) with a one year notice term. You can't leave quickly so their business is secure but you are secure too as they have to give 12 months notice before letting you go.

12 months for both sides? So if an employee wants to leave the employer can make them stay for one more year? Doesn't sound like a good thing to me.

Re: Hawaii Bans Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Clauses in High-Tech Employment

#126

Post by javert »

jon-wood wrote: post #108

Sadly the most important ideas are rarely the best funded. For example Zynga has vastly more funds at their disposal than Wikipedia, and I'd challenge anyone to argue that's the right way round.

Of course it's the right way around. Wikipedia has, basically, what it needs. I don't see how throwing more money at Wikipedia is going to accomplish anything.

Re: Hawaii Bans Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Clauses in High-Tech Employment

#127

Post by mcv »

skarap wrote: post #125
dia80 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only possible because companies want to be able to fire their employees quickly so that means the employees can leave quickly. I know of one place (in the UK) with a one year notice term. You can't leave quickly so their business is secure but you are secure too as they have to give 12 months notice before letting you go.

12 months for both sides? So if an employee wants to leave the employer can make them stay for one more year? Doesn't sound like a good thing to me.

12 months is extreme. But it's extreme for both sides.

Re: Hawaii Bans Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Clauses in High-Tech Employment

#128

Post by mcv »

sillygeese wrote: post #87
themartorana wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always found it weird when employers wanted to start a relationship entirely adversarially. I also found it weird when businesses identified employees as a significant and therefore negative cost center. Employees are life blood. If they aren't, get rid of them and get new life blood - but being so standoffish and adversarial is the antithesis of what an employer/employee relationship should be.

> I also found it weird when businesses identified employees as a significant and therefore negative cost center But they are pretty much the biggest cost center for any employer? I'm not saying employees should not be valued and treated well, but salaries add up to a lot of money.

Yes, employees are expensive, but they're also the companies biggest assets. It's worth treating them well. Without them, you're nothing.

If a company wants loyalty from their employees, they have to demonstrate their own loyalty towards their employees first.

Edit: maybe calling employees assets is wrong, because you don't own or control them. The relationships with your employees (and those with your customers) are your biggest assets. Ruin those relationships, and you squander your biggest sources of expertise and revenue.

Re: Hawaii Bans Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Clauses in High-Tech Employment

#129

Post by [deleted] »

jackmaney wrote: post #112
benjohnson wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a valid concern - that by training your employees and giving them experience, you make then so valuable that they can leave. I fight this problem several ways: I turn our services into a products so that I can onboard people quickly and drive down costs - for example instead of telling each employees to setup a backup on a server, I had one employee make a script that we can deploy on all new servers. By turning…

Please tell me the name of your company, because I don't EVER want to make the mistake of working for you.

[deleted]

Re: Hawaii Bans Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Clauses in High-Tech Employment

#130

Post by fapjacks »

javert wrote: post #126
jon-wood wrote: post #108

Sadly the most important ideas are rarely the best funded. For example Zynga has vastly more funds at their disposal than Wikipedia, and I'd challenge anyone to argue that's the right way round.

Of course it's the right way around. Wikipedia has, basically, what it needs. I don't see how throwing more money at Wikipedia is going to accomplish anything.

Oh? And Zynga "needs" something? Or is going to accomplish anything nearly as worthwhile as Wikipedia? Or... ?
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