keeping new employee from taking customers

Hello, I own a small business and want to have a form for new employees to sign so they cannot steal customers from us. How would we word this form to make it legal in a court of law? We own a cleaning service and have had several employees go out on their own, which is fine and understandable, but we do not want them able to take our customers. Which are big corporations, we clean new construction homes. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks ahead of time,
T.

This doesn't answer your question....maybe

Seems like the easy way would be with the use of a contract with the customers, binding them to a certain length of time with your company. If there isn't a contract, then despite an employee leaving, the customers have free will to choose their service provider.

Given this....please wait for a more reputable response. I only replied, so I could be included in others responses.

Contracting with your customers for a period of time would work for that period, but it may not be possible to get customers to agree to such a contract. Also, the period of time that even a few customers would agree to would be relatively short.

The usual method of accomplishing what you want is to have employees enter into a noncompetition agreement. FreeAdvice.com has a link to a very good site for legal forms. You can find a form that suits your purpose at: http://secure.uslegalforms.com/cgi-bin/forms/query.pl?S-T-US-B-competition|adviceco. Once on the site, look for the
“Noncompetition Agreement (Between Employee and Company) Control # US-OG-00056”. It is on the page that the link goes to. You can download the form for $10.00.