Pirating the competitor’s employees

Our major competitor is ruining our business by hiring almost everyone in the organization. Is there a way to stop it? — Red Bean.

Somewhere in a province, the parish priest noticed a group of young boys standing around a small stray dog. “What are you doing, boys?” asked the priest. “Telling lies,” replied one of the five boys. “The one who tells the biggest lie wins the dog.”

“Why, when I was your age,” the shocked priest said, “I never ever thought of telling a lie.” The boys looked at one another, each one little crestfallen.

Finally, one of them shrugged and said, “I guess he wins the dog.”

I’m telling you that story to underline the point that stopping a poacher from raiding your employees is “a big lie” in this planet.

You cannot stop it, despite the truckloads of employment contracts.

It’s hard to prevent your employees from joining a competitor.

Of course, you can moderate them using a combination of legal and other proactive means. These strategies require different approaches to make them successful.

For one, there is little point in resorting to legal means like requiring employees to put up a bond or signing them in for a three-year contract, if you don’t engage them in a mind game when you can have “positive power” over people.

Individuals have different personalities. They can be motivated or threatened in various ways. Some can be terrified to stay in one organization because he or she has a living contract and would want to avoid a costly legal battle.

There are others who would want to stay up to retirement even without a prohibitive employment contract because they like their employer for many reasons, like they’re treated fairly as the owner’s family members, and they don’t have the heart to dump their employer who is overly paternalistic.

Now, which is better, a mind game or an employment contract? Al Capone had the answer: “You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.”

Simply put, it means you need a formal contract to clearly list down the obligations of an employee and supplement it with a “kind word.”

However, you cannot force the employee to stay with the organization for the rest of his life as it violates the “involuntary servitude” clause of the 1987 Constitution.

But you can impose a reasonable restriction, generally not exceeding three years — if and when an employee is given a special training program say a postgraduate scholarship at the Asian Institute of Management or with a foreign institution.

On the other hand, the “kind word” may include an attractive pay package and benefits, bonuses, excellent working facilities, fair treatment, challenging assignments, and a paternalistic way of managing people.

Lastly, I know of certain employees who will stay much longer in the company far from your imagination. Mostly, they belong to one group — married to a jobless spouse, with at least five children of school age, with mortgaged property, and with aging parents. –In The WorkPlace By — Reylito A.H Elbo, Businessworld