An agreement not to divulge confidential information or make use of it outside of the workplace is one thing. I have that where I work. I can’t even tell family members confidential details - I can describe generally what type of organizations and people use our product, but I can’t name names of specific customers. That’s fine, it’s reasonable, everyone’s okay with that because it makes sense. It’s confidentiality and professionalism.
However, I don’t have a noncompete. If I left I could go work at the company next door - as long as I do not divulge the company’s secrets, which I wouldn’t do. That’s reasonable. What would not be reasonable would be if the company forced me to agree that if for any reason I lost or left my job, I would become unemployable for a significant part of my peak employable years, and my family would have to spend those years homeless and broke, without healthcare, even if I did nothing wrong. That’s not reasonable.
Companies have 2 choices: either they treat their employees with respect and trust, (remaining ready to follow up with legal action if they violate it), or they treat all employees as guilty from day one and punish them all for a crime (often for years), just in case, regardless of any wrongdoing. I think it’s fine for companies to have confidentiality agreements (and to prosecute if they’re violated), but non-compete agreements are not reasonable in the least in any way*. In my mind, it’s agreeing to a sentence for a crime that has not been committed, and I will not sign one.
- One could make exceptions for exceptional cases - perhaps if a spokesmodel for one company wanted to become the spokesmodel for their primary competitor, such that the company could claim significant brand damage just due to a highly-public employee switching to the competition or something. But that’s kind of rare and in no way affects most tech workers, let alone sandwich makers or warehouse workers. It would only be applicable when the employee’s public reputation directly affects the company’s valuation. And those people should have special contracts that would cover the situation.
