Joshua Hawks-Ladds Talks Employee Agreements on Rebel HR Podcast

Joshua A. Hawks-Ladds, co-chair of Pullman & Comley's Labor, Employment Law and Employee Benefits practice, spoke with Kyle Roed on the Rebel Human Resources Podcast about employment relationships, employee agreements and key legal provisions used to retain employees. 

Josh and Kyle discussed the process, risks and considerations to bear in mind with noncompete and/or nonsolicitation agreements when thinking about how to best retain employees. Josh first defines these commonly used agreements by saying "I want to differentiate between a noncompetition agreement, which prevents an employee from going to work for either a certain entity, or in a certain locale, or in a certain industry, or sometimes all three, versus a nonsolicitation covenant, which says you won't go after our employees or, or customers." While they can be very effective, "employers must be careful they limit the noncompete to those people who are armed with it with the weapons that can hurt the employer," Josh continues. When the same terms are used for every single employee, they tend to hold less weight if an organization should have an issue where they really need to enforce it.

Josh also reiterates the importance of having policies in place and encourages employers to be proactive so they will be in a position to have a much stronger claim with a written agreement or a firm policy that was violated.

To listen to the full episode, please visit www.rebelhumanresources.com.