Today I called up a candidate to find out if he is willing to move out of his comfort zone, I mean open to explore a challenging assignment elsewhere.
It's a regular affairs for me, because most the clients I handle strictly believe in recruiting candidates who're not actively looking out.
A difficult job, but the more you do it, more you love it: Putting your best efforts to convince those candidates that they must look out for better opportunities -- ultimately, help them building a better career.
Okay, let's not get deviated from the theme of this article.
The candidate I was talking to, is working for an organization where management strictly believe none of its employees should ever join a competitor. And to enforce this policy, they would get employees sign a legal document also -- I've strong doubt about its validity though.
When I disclosed to him that the proposed assignment is with one of the competitors, he politely declined to pursue it further saying he is keen to explore challenging options but only with non-competitors -- for the reasons stated above.
All my efforts to convince him about impracticality of that policy came to a grinding halt, when he shared that some of the ex-employees who challenged this peculiar policy - by joining competitors - were subjected to endless harassment including legal proceedings that lingered on for years.
Interestingly, contradicting its own policy, management of that company seem to be too happy to recruit potential candidates from its competitors.
In a nutshell, the company can recruit candidates from competitors but would never allow its employees to join them.
Does it sound funny? Yes it does, but there's a limit to behaving funnily. Isn't it?
Well, I'm not inclined to analyze it further and suggest any corrective action at the moment, but, would like to ask you a simple question: Have you ever heard of or come across such HR policy in your career so far and if so, what's your take on the validity of such cruelly innovative retention policy?
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2 comments:
I have known of companies that sign a bond but nothing on refraining employees to join competitors. would like to follow on this discussion
Thanks Shweta. It was a news for me also. This company has been practicing it for more than a decade, and without any resistance -- not even from HR fraternity. Unbelievable!
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