Morale at work has been super low for the past few years, ever since the CEO/President bragged about how well they did in 2021 “record profits, over and beyond anything we ever expected” and 2022 “we barely made more than we did last year”, but none of that success trickled down to the people responsible for that success. I’m surrounded by people actively looking for work elsewhere. So, to keep people from quitting, the company forced everyone to sign the agreement in the Imgur link I’ve attached. Of course it gives all power to the company, and of course we had to sign it under penalty of losing our jobs immediately.
This of course is in addition to Top Management blaming the Bottom Management for the morale issue, and rebranding poor morale as an “engagement issue”. They’re also forcing the workers to come up with solutions for the “engagement issue”, going so far as to put it on our annual reviews. Part of our “goals for the upcoming year” is to deal with “low engagement”. That’s right, if we don’t come up with solutions for our own morale problem, it will look poorly on our reviews.
I have worked for some brain-dead companies before, but I’ve never seen such myopia in Leadership. At least previously I knew I was getting fucked on purpose. Right now I’m not sure if it’s an accident.
That definitely seems like a case where a consultation with an employment lawyer is necessary. The non-compete is super broad and vaguely defined making it potentially unenforcable. They didn’t even define what a “reasonable amount of time” is. It could just be 1-2 months. And if you were forced to sign it then and there or lose your job, that opens up even more possibilities to have this thrown out.
But local laws on non-competes vary a lot making any advice from the internet pointless. You might also have to take some actions rather soon after signing it or it will stick. So spending $200 on a short consultation could pay off in the long run. If you shop around for a bit you might even find a free consultation.