What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Arkansas
I have a litany of questions on this topic, but I'll just ask a couple. But first some quick background: I have worked for my employer for 23 years, and it's the place I've worked since I earned my bachelors. After moving around for several years to different positions (always a promotion), I have been in my current role for 12 years. I have received four promotions in that role, with my last one coming two months ago. I had expected to be promoted to vice-president mostly based on it was the usual next title for my position, and my senior vice-president had been telling me for two years he thought I deserved it. Unfortunately, the timing was bad and our president felt we had too many VP; therefore, to promote me, they created a new position by tacking on "senior" to my title. I received a decent raise and a generous amount of stock that came with a catch. I don't receive any of the stock for eight years. Needless to say, I was underwhelmed and a little disappointed with my "promotion."
In my role, I am on the team that procures a service that's essential to our business, and my company could not exist without that service. I have been involved with innumerable negotiations, and as the guy with the most tenure, I am often relied upon as the "historian" since history is often important to provide context. Also, I am usually pulled into various negotiations. I don't believe anyone is ever indispensable (even Steve Jobs and Sam Walton were such!), I've been told I am very important to our team's function and often told they need me in my role rather than transferring to other departments. Because I love what I do, I'm OK with that.
I should say, my company (approx. $5.5 billion in revenues) is considered by most to be the leader in its industry. Because we've been doing what we do for 25 years and were doing it before anyone else, we were able to secure very advantageous contracts from our vendors that we've maintained to this day. On top of having considerable experience with procurement in a considerably specialized area, I have considerable knowledge of our contracts and am probably one of three people with such knowledge.
Each year, I receive an award of company stock as part of my annual compensation, and over the years, that stock award now constitutes about 60% of my compensation (which comes to around $225K). To get possession of that stock, I am required to sign a non-compete agreement, which says many things. But the one in question is a non-compete. In exchange for the stock, I agree that up my termination for ANY reason, I will not go to a certain competitors, customers and vendors (defined in the agreement) for two years. Further, the agreement goes on to explicitly name certain competitors AND the six vendors with which I work.
Yes, I sign those agreements within hours of receiving them, and I've signed them probably ten times over the years. But, if I didn't sign them, I'd lose out on over half my compensation, and I'd be labeled as disloyal and could forget promotion in the future. In fact, I once heard a high, high level manager disparage an employee who delayed for weeks signing his agreement. He's no longer with the company. The way I see it, I really don't have an option not to sign the agreement.
From time-to-time, employees at my level and above leave the company to go to competitors or customers. My understanding is the company always sends nasty letters with threats of litigation. As far as I know, the ones I knew were able to stay at their new companies. I've heard that a few times, we worked it out with the former employee's new employer to limit their new roles for a specified period. On other ex-employees, I'm not sure what happened.
I'm not looking for an exhaustive legal opinion from the forum, but would be interested to know if I should let these non-competes keep me from pursuing new opportunities.
I'm not actively looking, but I've begun to return call from headhunters, and once I'm confident I've hit my personal ceiling at my company, I'll start looking. Headhunters have told me my resume is quite attractive, and coming from the industry leader makes me all the more so.
I have a litany of questions on this topic, but I'll just ask a couple. But first some quick background: I have worked for my employer for 23 years, and it's the place I've worked since I earned my bachelors. After moving around for several years to different positions (always a promotion), I have been in my current role for 12 years. I have received four promotions in that role, with my last one coming two months ago. I had expected to be promoted to vice-president mostly based on it was the usual next title for my position, and my senior vice-president had been telling me for two years he thought I deserved it. Unfortunately, the timing was bad and our president felt we had too many VP; therefore, to promote me, they created a new position by tacking on "senior" to my title. I received a decent raise and a generous amount of stock that came with a catch. I don't receive any of the stock for eight years. Needless to say, I was underwhelmed and a little disappointed with my "promotion."
In my role, I am on the team that procures a service that's essential to our business, and my company could not exist without that service. I have been involved with innumerable negotiations, and as the guy with the most tenure, I am often relied upon as the "historian" since history is often important to provide context. Also, I am usually pulled into various negotiations. I don't believe anyone is ever indispensable (even Steve Jobs and Sam Walton were such!), I've been told I am very important to our team's function and often told they need me in my role rather than transferring to other departments. Because I love what I do, I'm OK with that.
I should say, my company (approx. $5.5 billion in revenues) is considered by most to be the leader in its industry. Because we've been doing what we do for 25 years and were doing it before anyone else, we were able to secure very advantageous contracts from our vendors that we've maintained to this day. On top of having considerable experience with procurement in a considerably specialized area, I have considerable knowledge of our contracts and am probably one of three people with such knowledge.
Each year, I receive an award of company stock as part of my annual compensation, and over the years, that stock award now constitutes about 60% of my compensation (which comes to around $225K). To get possession of that stock, I am required to sign a non-compete agreement, which says many things. But the one in question is a non-compete. In exchange for the stock, I agree that up my termination for ANY reason, I will not go to a certain competitors, customers and vendors (defined in the agreement) for two years. Further, the agreement goes on to explicitly name certain competitors AND the six vendors with which I work.
Yes, I sign those agreements within hours of receiving them, and I've signed them probably ten times over the years. But, if I didn't sign them, I'd lose out on over half my compensation, and I'd be labeled as disloyal and could forget promotion in the future. In fact, I once heard a high, high level manager disparage an employee who delayed for weeks signing his agreement. He's no longer with the company. The way I see it, I really don't have an option not to sign the agreement.
From time-to-time, employees at my level and above leave the company to go to competitors or customers. My understanding is the company always sends nasty letters with threats of litigation. As far as I know, the ones I knew were able to stay at their new companies. I've heard that a few times, we worked it out with the former employee's new employer to limit their new roles for a specified period. On other ex-employees, I'm not sure what happened.
I'm not looking for an exhaustive legal opinion from the forum, but would be interested to know if I should let these non-competes keep me from pursuing new opportunities.
I'm not actively looking, but I've begun to return call from headhunters, and once I'm confident I've hit my personal ceiling at my company, I'll start looking. Headhunters have told me my resume is quite attractive, and coming from the industry leader makes me all the more so.
