Mostly agree, I do think it gets tricky when the company invested significant resources in developing the market and training the employee. Which is why it has to be industry and state specific.
A noncompete in a city of 50k is going to hit harder than in a city of 500k and is less defensible. And the more specific the skill set the more nuanced it has to be - that one cuts both ways.
But if they're just trying to control market share by eliminating competition vs. protecting a definable unique investment then I'm going to be against the noncompete.
Yeah. There are highly competitive, commoditized industries completely dependent on their sales force to differentiate their product or service and literally create the value.
Take the PEO Industry for example- There is virtually no difference in terms of price or the the product/service offering between Paychex, Insperity, Oasis, ADP, Amplify, CoAdvantage and a bunch of others. It's essentially the same shit. It's all about how good the rep is at bringing shit on board, and massaging the inevitable issues that come up so they stay on board.
Paychex is almost certainly the best at creating and developing the best, most knowledgeable and skilled sales people. In fact they were so fucking good, it was far easier for their competitors just to throw money at their people and hire them away. So they started getting more and more onerous with their non-competes. But that did not stop some of their best people from leaving. Years ago, I had 2 friends that left Paychex for ADP in Daytona to work out their non-compete, then they just came back to Jax.
Eventually, Paychex came up with better and more creative ways of compensation. Now the top reps at Paychex make
fucking bank. A competitor could probably throw money at a Paychex rep in the bottom half of their performance matrix and poach them. But they'd never pay what it took to get the top people. That's what you want companies doing for fuck sakes. Competing for people by offering them more. Not hamstringing them.
Bottom line- If you want a former employee to not work in a certain place for a certain period, you should have to pay for that. Probably a lot.
