Every business grows and becomes successful by keeping its trade secrets and client information private and confidential. Every member of an organisation that comes across any sensitive information related to business has a liability to protect it from getting disclosed outsiders. Often disclosure of any confidential information by the company’s employees causes damage to the company’s name and reputation to a huge extent. This is when non-disclosure agreements for employees come into picture.
Non-disclosure agreement is a comprehensive agreement whereby the employees agree to keep any private and sensitive business information as their duty towards the organisation. Non-disclosure agreements put a liability on employees to protect any business information they come across during the course of their employment. This liability is ongoing and continues even after the employee resigns or the employment is terminated.
An employee confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement is one of the many measures to protect the company from losing its trade secrets to competitors by the hands of few employees that may go rogue. Here’s a complete checklist for employers to keep in mind while getting their employee non-disclosure agreements made by employment and labour lawyers:
Make the agreement as simple and clear as possible and give the employee sufficient time to go through the agreement before signing it. This reduces the chances of any future claims by employee that they didn’t get enough time to understand the agreement.
Get 2 copies of the agreement made and attested by the employee- one for the company’s reference and the other for employee’s.
Employee non-disclosure agreements must be signed along with the employment agreement. Sometimes, when the employee is promoted, a fresh NDA can be made with new terms and conditions.
Not all employments are same. A template NDA can be the worst nightmare for the employer as theNDAs not drafted by lawyers often miss out on the requisite stipulations with regards to the employment conditions and details of the information that is accessed by the employee.
An employee NDA must include the requisite clauses generic for all NDA:
Information of parties: The agreement must clearly state the information of both the employer and employee. This information includes the name and address of both sides and designation of the employee.
Confidential information: The agreement must mention all the information that is accessed by the employee during their course of employment. The NDA must state the information pertaining to company’s secrets, IPR information, client details, vendor information, third party information, or any other information accessed by the employee.
Legal remedies: The employee confidentiality agreement must also stipulate legal actions that the employer can take against the employee for disclosing or leaking any confidential information to a third party. This includes the legal procedure and penalty to be levied on employee for leaking company’s information.
Continuing obligation: The NDA must also state the duration of employee’s liability i.e. whether the liability will continue even after the employment comes to an end or is it only applicable for the period during which the employee is a part of the organisation.
Governing law: The NDA must also state the law that will be applicable to the employer and employee and the court which will have jurisdiction over the legal dispute between them.
Protecting their company’s information is a task that must be executed by the employers themselves and they must take all the required measures to ensure that the business trade secrets remain a secret.
Greater the company’s risk of losing private information, greater the employer’s responsibility to protect it in any way possible. A foolproof employee non-disclosure agreement drafted by a well-versed employment and labour lawyer is one of the most important steps to safeguard company’s confidential information.
Need to get employee non-disclosure agreement made? Hire the best employment and labour lawyer from MyAdvo. Email us at info@myadvo.in or call now at 9811782573.
