There is no doubt that talent is highly coveted in the employment marketplace, and that’s the case regardless of the condition of the economy.
Every organization has a goal to hire the best candidates as employees. In addition, every organization desires to keep its best employees.
What results is a never-ending battle for the best candidates and employees. This battle is often referred to as “The War for Talent.”
However, how far should organizations NOT go in their quest to retain top talent? While that seems like an open-ended question, a definitive answer might already have been provided.
That’s because a few years ago, the U.S. Department of Justice became aware of allegations that several Silicon Valley companies had been colluding among themselves since at least 2006 by agreeing not to recruit each other’s employees. The DOJ eventually brought a civil suit against the companies alleging violations of the federal antitrust laws.
While not conceding the illegality of the agreement, seven of them—Lucasfilm, Intuit, Pixar, Adobe, Apple, Google, and Intel—admitted they entered into such an agreement. As a result, three of the companies (LucasFilm, Pixar, and Intuit) were eventually ordered to pay $20 million to workers as part of a legal settlement brought by the workers.
This sets a rather interesting precedent for organizations that believe they can somehow stop other organizations and recruiters from trying to recruit their employees.
Here’s the reality of the situation: you can’t stop your best employees from being recruited. Attempting to do so could quite possibly put your company in the same “legal hot water” as LucasFilm, Pixar, and Intuit.
Below is a passage from the Department of Justice’s civil suit:
“These ‘no cold call agreements’ are facially anticompetitive because they eliminated a significant form of competition to attract high-tech employees, and overall, substantially diminished competition to the detriment of the affected employees, who were likely deprived of competitively important information and access to better job opportunities.”
If you want to successfully retain your top employees, the best way to accomplish this is NOT by attempting to stop other companies from recruiting them. Instead, do everything you can to retain those employees the right way.
Superstar employees who are compensated well and appreciated often are far less likely to leave their current position . . . even if other companies are attempting to recruit them.
We help support careers in one of two ways: 1. By helping to find the right opportunity when the time is right, and 2. By helping to recruit top talent for the critical needs of organizations. If this is something you would like to explore further, please send an email to stacy@thevetrecruiter.com.