As a bunch of rug-suckers we can conjecture and speculate all day long till the cows come home. (And to a certain degree a national discussion is irrelevant since each state has different laws- witness Oklahoma above!)
However, you can find one of the better discussions on the entire non-compete issue that I have read lately (and it is written for our industry) at
http://www.randrmagonline.com/CDA/Artic ... 0000155834 This article is written by a real honest-to-goodness attorney and reads like it too. Yawn! But hey, the law is a dull subject. Check out the article if you are serious about learning what you can and can't do.
This piece is from Evan's new "Restoration and Remediation" magazine. Say what you will about ICS, if you are doing any amount of water or fire damage you should subscribe to R& R and even better, it is free.
www.randrmagonline.com (Full disclosure: I have written a couple of articles for the mag but have no financial stake in it.)
There is a pretty good article in the Fall R & R issue by Ken Tucker on leadership called "Building Sand Castles that Endure" and an even better on restoration estimating by a fellow named Martin Woods. (OK, there is also a decent piece on the Emotional Dynamics of a restoration loss by some old ex-has-been rugsucker too.)
Steve Toburen CR
Director of Training and non-attorney
Jon-Don's
Strategies for Success
PS As usual, Ken Snow hit it pretty well. Treat them right and pay them well and you don't need a (usually unenforceable) non-compete. However, I would add a "fall-back defense" to Ken's strategy. (Because remember sometimes people do suffer what Michael Gerber calls an "entrepreneurial seizure". No matter how good you are to them they want to have their own business!)
At
SFS we suggest dealing with this "employee going into his or her own business scenario" in two ways. First, in my company we totally and completely dominated our local market. If you have your act together as a business so well locally the very best "non-compete" you will have is when a departing employee thinks, "I would be nuts to try to compete with these guys. I think I will move to where the pastures are greener to open my business." And in sixteen years I had several employees who went off on their own. But not ONE opened a company within 200 miles of me. (The shotgun helped too.)
However, another tactic our
SFS members sometimes use is called "open mentor communication". That's right, bring the matter up at hiring. Explain that IF and when they do want to try going out on their own you will help them as long as they respect your current customers AND market position.
So for example if an employee wants to open his own business you offer to even let them take your excess work and/or jobs you don't want IF they focus on a different market. As someone (maybe Nick Paolella) elegantly put it, "I would rather have them inside the tent with me peeing out instead of outside the tent peeing into it!" There IS enough business to go around for everyone IF we use the Rodney King strategy, "Why can't we all just get along?"