Legal Loyalty

There is a such thing as loyalty when working for a company. Every company has a goal to maximize profit and to dominate their specific target market. There is a lot of time, energy, and brain-power that goes into this process and it all costs. Employees come up with and are trusted with valuable strategically formed information. In order for the company to be successful there must be employee loyalty to prevent a leak in the companies confidential endeavors.
    According to Danielle Feinstein of Inside Counsel, Groupon recently filed a civil complaint against two of their former sales managers “ for breaking their employment agreement and joining a competing venture within 24 months of their departure with Groupon”. The problem is that these two former managers are now sharing confidential trade information about the company with Google. The companies customer listings and marketing strategies are now threatened. Google actually offered Groupon $6 billion to take over but the company declined and in turn Google created a competing venture.
    Similarly Alex Vorro of Inside Counsel wrote about the former Olympus CEO Micheal Woodford who was fired because of disagreements about his management style who may be dealing some revenge. The former CEO is alleged to be using his position to leak company secrets. The former CEO held PricewaterhouseCoopers report which indicated the company might become under “legal and regulatory investigation as a result of the payments as evidence of his remarks.”. The company is considering legal action against him.
    But how do we as management prevent a legal war against an employee? I suggest as management we focus on keeping morale high. I think it is up to management to make our work environment innovative and approachable. Having proper communication has everything to do with how employees view management. Listening, understanding, accepting, and considering is something upper-level management must consistently work on. Nobody wants to work for a company that does not respect their ideas, or their knowledge. In order to stay out of the courtroom we must establish how important loyalty is to the company. The last thing we want is our competitors knowing why we are successful!

Feinstein, Danielle. "Inside Insights Groupon Suing Former Employees Who Joined Google." InsideCounsel. Summit Business Media, 25 Oct. 2011. Web. 25 Oct. 2011. <http://www.insidecounsel.com/2011/10/25/groupon-suing-former-employees-who-joined-google>.

Vorro, Alex. "Olympus Says Ex-CEO Leaked Company Secrets." InsideCounsel. Summit Business Media, 25 Oct. 2011. Web. 25 Oct. 2011. <http://www.insidecounsel.com/2011/10/25/olympus-says-ex-ceo-leaked-company-secrets>.