Tendency to intercept projects/clients by employees with subsequent dismissal. What to do?

Question

Project management

Hello.
The situation with the dismissal of employees with the opening of similar projects in new / other ones that they did in the company began to gain momentum. Especially, this topic is relevant at the end of the year (1-2 months before the New Year). Unfortunately, it is impossible to close everything with signatures in clouds of legal documents... A remote or office employee, unfortunately, does not play a role here: it makes no difference in this situation at all - the result is the same.
How does it usually happen?
1. An employee takes time off from work more and more often, usually referring to health (his own or family members) and the necessary procedures to correct it for 1-2 days with a frequency of 1-2 weeks ...
2. Suddenly, he says that a lot of work has been put on him and that he does not have time to do everything, he is increasingly trying to lie and refer to facts and conditions that have not changed.
3. In parallel, a new company (or a subsidiary of a large one) is opened in 1-2 months with a similar project.
4. Brings a letter of resignation to the company's management or "leaves" him for frequent absences from the workplace and explains that he is not profitable for the company.
Bottom line: the money and effort of the current company was spent on a competitor.
Questions:
1. How can this be avoided and prevented from happening? (Maybe there are tests or something else?)
2. What to do if the trend has already started? How to check an employee?
3. If the project / client has already been "leaked" to the side - is it possible to somehow "step on the tail"?
Who can advise what?
Thanks in advance!
PS: Of course, you don't need to describe everything here - I will be glad to receive answers in the mail (in the profile).
UPD1: Thank you all for the informative replies! So far, they have begun to check employees on Google search and the open registry of registrations of legal entities.
We also plan to create several levels of access to project information and comprehensive analytics of employee behavior (mail, chat, crm, video surveillance, presence / absence, etc.) for early detection of deviations.
Looking forward to more answers... Thank you (again)!
UPD2:Summing up, we can say that the audit revealed about 17% (this is really a lot and we didn’t even expect!) unscrupulous employees with whom we have already parted, including some of them who have already been heads of their companies for some time and “intercepted” our customers directly to you. Mostly, this list included ideological and really enterprising employees of the PR department and the technical support department (Support Service). Colleagues who opened their own business had senior positions in our company: each in his own specific department or direction.
The conclusion is simple: carefully monitor the work activities of your employees and take all necessary measures in time to avoid leakage of potential income and customers.
PS: Check carefully the information about the CEO of the company before starting any work with her, so as not to accidentally end up in the "bear's skin" that he and his employer will share between themselves.

Answer 1

If this happens to you often, then the problem is not in the employees.

Answer 2

Have you tried paying them? Well, in general, the conditions are better than those offered by competitors.

Answer 3

The more you divide into parts, the better.
If the question concerns clients, it's very simple:
New clients are brought in by bulldogs and they immediately follow more new clients
Old clients are processed by dachshunds and licked from all sides
If a bulldog quits, all he can do is call and offer his services to those he attracted, but your dachshunds must work better than him. Divide employees by character.
If dachshunds are constantly leaving, you need to create a CRM that is most convenient for you and inconvenient for her, and rely on the fact that girls (who usually work as dachshunds) do not rummage in the Google Chrome code and will not be able to tear out contacts from there.
In this CRM, each client cannot be copied, for example, it does not stupidly stand out. And in the table of clients the email in general is not specified. That is, all she will steal from you is the clients she found herself, but your other dachshunds must call and constantly ask clients what they did not like. Then even the most affectionate dachshund, alone, cannot give more than your entire department.
However, as already said - if your employees leave their jobs en masse, then the matter is not in the employees, but in your head. If an employee knows that you will take care of him and protect him, why the hell should he leave? He can still leave because he feels that he is doing everything, and you are not doing anything, in this case there are two options: "create the feeling that the board of directors is always busy with something" and communicate with him the greatest honor, or the second way is to be on the side their employees at all costs - if a client comes - the employee is not lowered in front of him, but you take it and the three of you start to figure it out - you are in the role of dad, he is in the role of your son, and the client.

Answer 4

You are on a slippery path. A few years ago I worked at a small startup. The startup began to bring money, they began to develop it. And at one moment the authorities were bitten by a rooster in the ass: our project can be stolen!!! It started small - tracking traffic, maximum restriction of rights and analysis of logs. Then keyloggers began to appear, then they installed surveillance cameras, then we found a voice recorder that turned on to record when the bosses left somewhere. Then they went crazy and, in general, without fail, the authorities began to be in the same office with us and sit in such a position to see what everyone was doing. As a result, after 6 months of such work, the whole team screwed up who went where, despite the fact that the conditions were very even nothing in terms of salary and schedule. Therefore, it is worth listening to the advice, that have already been given - it is worth looking for a problem in yourself and trying to attract employees, and not push them away by placing them in a rigid framework. Programmers make your project. Without them, your project is worth nothing (in fact, your question says about this - it is enough for them to carry away the idea and you are in a panic). So make sure they don't want to leave.

Answer 5

an employee will hardly leave a good company, apparently something is wrong in your company, that employees not only bring down, but also take customers away.
look around

Answer 6

Everything is very simple. They leave because the conditions are better.
I was on both sides of the barricades.
1) He left, picking up clients along the way - The reason is very simple. I didn't get paid for nine months. 9 months at $1500, I had to serve 10 clients every single day in different parts of the city. Without money for maintenance, my personal transport reported that I would not go anywhere without a major overhaul. Regarding wages, the director fed breakfast all the time, whined that there was no money, although I found clients, processed, sold services, implemented and supported. From here a conclusion - to send the director, to take away clients, to receive profit.
2) I am a director. First of all, while he worked alone, he created the conditions:
a) Rented a large office
b) Raised a test site
c) Arranged a rest room
d) Worked out the employee remuneration system
e) Hired lawyers to develop contracts with Clients / Employees
During 1.5 years of the company's existence, I delayed earnings only once (but for 2 weeks).
Outcome: Lost 2 employees out of 11, lost 1 client.
So that's the conclusion. No delays in payment - no losses.

Answer 7

I can only tell you one thing - if it is so easy for a person to leave and open his own company, also your competitor, then three cases are possible:
1) the person is an idiot, does not at all evaluate his capabilities and does not understand what kind of work he has to do to create a company (very common)
2) a person is so willing to create his own company and / or he is so bored with you that he is ready to do this work (rarely enough);
3) in fact, opening your own company in your line of business is not difficult, and in fact both this person and you yourself are simply trying to "be on horseback" on the principle of whoever gets up first - that's the sneakers.
More on the last point.
Right now, I can’t even imagine how incredible an amount of effort I will need to invest in order to try to create at least a semblance of a competitor to the company where I work. Those. if I decide to leave, it will be a departure to some completely separate project, on a much smaller scale, and having nothing to do with the current workplace, but very interesting for me (i.e. just case 2).
Therefore, the question is for YOU: what have you done so incredible within your company? Did you find unique projects? Unique connections spiced up with your proven track record (critical point)? It's all there in my workplace. Do you have this in your company's workplaces?
And if not, why are you surprised? You share easily accessible resources, just like two-month-old web studios rip out business card sites from each other for three thousand. Then you should already be used to "closing with captions".
No, seriously, how do you even run a business if the main thing for you is the legal cell of an employee? Why are you talking about this in your question, and not about the fact that you have the best clients in the city in your hands?

Answer 8

Some markets have extremely low money entry thresholds. If an employee can create, sell and support a really competitive project without you, then you are an extra link eating money. Our business is used to the fact that an employee belongs to him and you can just get money from his work, in some areas this does not work, since the means of production are available to everyone.
The only way to avoid this (not completely, but quite systematically) is to share and strive for mutually beneficial cooperation. It should be more profitable for a specialist to stay with you than to separate.

Answer 9

You have quite enterprising employees, since they turn this around. It seems to me that the matter is in character: if a person left you and organized his own business, then most likely you overlooked it when recruiting.
There are people who will never have the courage to start their own business or they just don't need it. The most they can do is go to a competitor. Look for these guys)
To those dudes who left you, you need to wish good luck and congratulate them on getting rid of slavery! I always admire these

Answer 10

Divide projects into parts, full control only by yourself or a trustee

Answer 11

I have always been a believer that an idea without implementation is nothing. An idea can be copied, taken out of a project, etc., but without a deep understanding or some kind of non-competitive advantage, the idea will not take off for other people. You need to take a set of measures: work on ideas so that stupid copying does not work and change the tactics of hiring people. It is very similar to the fact that you hire people who are prone to exactly this behavior. And communicate more with people in the process of work. To prevent such behavior in advance. Regular 1x1 meetings, a psychological contract and other manager tools will help.

Answer 12

We regularly encounter this phenomenon, I am glad that if your projects are copied and intercepted from you, then you are ahead. The project is over, and the experience does not come so quickly and own bumps. And for us, this is a reason to become better, to figure out where to go better and how else you can differ from such firms. The advantage is that you get to know your competitor by sight, you yourself raised him and you know his pros and cons. Some clients can get it right. Do not be upset, this is a natural process when a specialist begins to imagine himself an owner and, not seeing all the work, considers why he is worse and why he cannot do the same while working for himself. One can only wish success to the newly minted entrepreneur, and sleepless nights. On the contrary, it’s good that such people fall off the team faster, making room for people

Answer 13

Develop your people partner so that not girls who live in fictional worlds, occasionally give out T-shirts, work in it, but do real work with people, monitor the market and understand the market value of specialists.
In order for people not to leave, it should be interesting for them to work here, and how to keep people - wage / work conditions should be no worse than the market average. Personal treats are even better.
Actually, the task of the manager is to organize his office in such a way that it is better than others, and if you think that there is a working recipe for this, then this cannot be, in principle, because of the existence of competitiveness. If there is someone better, then someone will have to be worse.

Answer 14

In Russia, it is absolutely unprofitable to solve this problem by methods of patenting, securing copyrights, and applications to the court. It is too resource-intensive, plus you will never protect yourself from everything.
Judging by the information in the text, you trust too much to those people whom you do not know well enough. Be interested not only in the professional qualities of the employee, but also in his lifestyle, how he spends time outside of work, ask leading questions.
A lot of facts from a person's biography can indirectly hint at his reliability. Make inquiries. Before delegating a task, evaluate the possible risks.
Even if an employee has high earnings, this does not mean at all that he will not leave you.
Especially if he is smarter than you.
Especially if he clearly understands how to develop the business in which he works as an employee.
Especially if he knows the answer to the question: does he need your competence in this matter?
Especially in the Russian Federation in the current economic situation
. At the expense of "gone" clients: if the client so easily went to a competitor and forgot about you, then this was not your client yet .
At the start-up stage, it is too early to operate with the phrase "regular customer". Chances are you don't have enough resources right now to create loyal customers.
There is a good article on Habré with good comments. Get something useful from there
habrahabr.ru/company/scrumtrek/blog/185334

Answer 15

There is nothing sadder and more unpleasant in life than working in a domestic office
It is better to go to a factory - and in parallel to make your own startup
Only in the capital it is not so in places - the best professionals flow to the capital and to the west
There is no ability for teamwork at the genetic level in Russian culture
Exception - war when
Therefore, young padawan, do everything yourself always and be self-sufficient

Answer 16

1. How can this be avoided and prevented from happening? (Maybe there are tests or something else?)

To recruit ass # ots, just performers who are not able to pass the fare without the permission of the wife / mother. It seems strange but it's a real way out I'm completely serious. Psychological tests will show how to hire such people. Of the shortcomings of the initiative and especially high performance, do not expect them.
Within the framework of legal grounds, only install a program for monitoring everything on a working PC. There is an option to monitor the registers of individual entrepreneurs and LLC founders, but this is more difficult. Well, I do not suggest listening to phones))
It is very rare, but there an employee who is still sour should get caught. This is where you have to work with clients. It would be easier if some other higher-ranking employee would work with the client. Then he will be able to convince the client before leaving. It is possible to tie up personal relationships with a director, for example, but it all works the same way as long as you do your job well.

Answer 17

I know I myself went through such a company: one amount is written in the vacancy, they say for an interview what we will think about. The total amount is as if all taxes (30%) were deducted from the amount in the vacancy. It turns out ZP from the low-end category. At the same time, the top puts on the task from 30 minutes, version control systems are not up to date at all, my server is cooler than the desktop, there is no social package (before that, in two companies, the social package included paying for lunch in two companies).
And as a result: I watched how, on average, one employee (programmers and admins) dumped per month.
One thing is strange, the managers are all in place. And then I was surprised that they had a vacancy on their sites for 8 months.

Answer 18

The answer is very simple - to work with personnel. Pay special attention to personnel who are involved in serious projects. It should simply be more convenient and profitable for a person to work in the old place than to leave for a new one.
The higher the position, the more opportunities should be given to participate in profits.

Answer 19

That's okay, you can, on the advice of others, break it down into subtasks, hire nerds, and so on.
But sooner or later, even the most stupid and sluggish developer will gain experience, knowledge, see a much more interesting offer and dump, that is, you will lose your investment in this person anyway. And this problem is much more global than yours, many people face it.

Answer 20

I'll try to be original. Do you need a member of this team?
The team seems to be coping well without you personally.
So for understanding, the director costs in the labor market of a large enterprise in the region of 100-150 thousand rubles.
Find such a director and observe what you are underdeveloped as a professional, whether you overestimate your value in the labor market.
Let's say, as a salesman, the phrase "care" is not clear to me - it is associated with "guardianship" / "violation of the boundaries of private territory" / "rob-steal".
In work, people combine opportunities, not needs. If someone does not keep up with the team in the necessary professional qualifications - welcome overboard.
Also, let me give you advice - stake out a position for yourself with friends / acquaintances or someone else so that you have something to retreat with (in labor, where would you spend all this time and taxes were paid from where you, as an employee)
.
People "who tried themselves in business" are rarely hired:
1. Loser. And no one needs losers / yet, and it will break.
2. Competitor.
ps
Reading the comments.
Always pleased with the advice on the topic "divide and rule."
Google on the phrase "the head of the difference parasite" - the picture will be.

Answer 21

What do you do when the woman you love leaves you? Give her more time! But already another (new), and this one will have to be let go and forgotten. And fewer friends, drinking, gyms and fishing.

Answer 22

Maybe you are not working on those projects? If the projects are not resistant not only to code theft, but even to copying the idea, then you have no additional competitive advantages, you need to analyze it more carefully before starting development. If you have a better understanding (of service, needs, customers), have technical know-how, have trained people for this project, have contact with customers, and so on - all this in the aggregate is difficult to repeat in a copy, and even more so alone. If they repeat, both successfully and at lower costs, then your employees understand better and work more efficiently.
Also, according to the description, it is not clear whether there is even a stable team (at least the core) that deals with critical projects. If there is no team, everyone is hired, and everything is in flux - there is nothing to be surprised at, this is a normal situation, everything is still cool with you. It is not for nothing that when buying startups, the team is the key factor - products are rarely needed separately from the team, and a team walking on its own will open a fork of the project in half the cases.
Excessive selection strains normal/experienced developers. Advice about nerds is an option to some extent, but here everyone decides for himself which type to work with. Alternatively, you can hire only designers / front-end developers / testers, and develop all the most important things on your own / outsource to a proven outsourcer.
Do not be paranoid and focus on your product and customers. If systematically taken away, switch to projects in which you have more advantages.
3. If the project / client has already been "leaked" to the side - is it possible to somehow "step on the tail"?
Complicated. You just have to study why the client left. Price? Or is it just that nothing is ready for you, but for some reason your employee is ready?

Answer 23

From experience - clients get used to the last link - the manager with whom they work and settle all questions. And the management of an ordinary client does not care - he cares about what is needed, on time, at the right price, without a brain and possibly ADDITIONAL SERVICES. Additional services - starting from a rollback and continuing with left-handed securities, well, or something else - say, part of the goods on credit, or take something with a possible return.
All this rests on a personal relationship. If this manager leaves, then the client leaves with him. Sometimes the client does not even know that the manager has left - if the connection with him is by mobile phone. It was like this - I can’t get through to the manager, I call the general phone - they tell me that he hasn’t been working there for ABOUT A YEAR. And I talked to him about a week ago. Or the client himself is looking for a departed manager - the manager I needed left and organized his own office - they called him in front of me - I managed to peep the phone number on a stationary device. How to exclude this with regular customers - I do not know.

Answer 24

So what's the problem? That's the problem.
Did he steal the code he wrote for you? - it is quite possible to defend yourself legally.
or
was he freeloading at work, thinking about his business? - it is quite possible to defend yourself both legally and simply make it work.
or
did he steal the idea? - lol.
Or
did they quit often? - lol.
or
stealing your customers? - You can defend yourself legally, but in general, you are in the market, there is competition
. I don’t see any problem yet, and most importantly, the question you want to get an answer to.

Answer 25

We also plan to create several levels of access to project information and comprehensive analytics of employee behavior (mail, chat, crm, video surveillance, presence / absence, etc.) for early detection of deviations.

About the early detection of deviations - the question is not the timing, but the causes and correction. If a person leaves 3 or 6 months earlier, then the natural question arises how much you miss due to the fact that he works for you for 3-6 months. less than he could work? If you don’t really miss anything (i.e. we replace it with another specialist and no problems), then IMHO you definitely have something wrong. Those. IMHO, they should not be afraid of competitors, but of the fact that your people, who have grown to some kind of state, who have finally grown to understand your topic, who now, in theory, should begin to bear fruit (well, at least a year, until they get tired of the topic) suddenly leave you. They, in theory, have gained qualifications from you on exactly your narrow topic, this topic is interesting to them, they want to deal with it, they want to continue to grow, they are able to be useful - ideal employees, pure thrill for business. Provide such a person with comfort so that he does not want to bother about his own competition with you or the transition to your competitors, and he will give himself to work with great pleasure and bring you a lot of benefits. And in place of this, he bothers and leaves, and it is not you who pluck these fruits.
Those. IMHO like this: you know how to grow fruits - this is your huge plus (and troubles at the expense of tolerance levels or video surveillance IMHO can damage this), but you don’t want to pick and eat these fruits - this is your minus.
"comprehensive analytics of employee behavior for early detection of deviations" - once again, you will know in advance when the fruit is ripe. But the point is to pick the fruits and eat them.

Answer 26

Useful article on this topic

Answer 27

If customers leave, you need to understand why. If it is more profitable for them to work directly with your employees, then you, as a layer, do not add any value to the process. Create that value.

Answer 28

1. you need to feed better - they won’t fly away
2. the load in a startup is usually greater, they put everything on the developers - who wants to work hard because of your (possibly) ridiculous ambitions that people don’t believe in
3. compare your project in a little room out of 10 people where there are a lot of "managers" and mail.ru in the tower with all the amenities and professional growth, etc.
From all the points it follows ->
As a rule, people go to startups not from a good life, but the fact that a project was stolen is a normal phenomenon, you can sign information about non-disclosure, but not the fact that a person will simply find the same project somewhere else. And yes, if the project is interesting - why not develop Egor in a good company on good terms ...
Tested on my own experience.

Answer 29

Eternal days off - a consequence of low motivation.
Startups cannot provide a large number of motivational factors, so they must offer salaries above the market average. More than big companies.
This is competition. This is fine.
Judging by the fact that they haven’t worked much for you, they don’t take away the code.

1. How can this be avoided and prevented from happening? (Maybe there are tests or something else?)
2. What to do if the trend has already started? How to check an employee?
3. If the project / client has already been "leaked" to the side - is it possible to somehow "step on the tail"?

1. Motivate. The main motivator is money.
2. Talk. Usually employees want to ask for other conditions before they leave. And these conditions are worth giving.
3. You can, but then you can sit for it.

Answer 30

People need to be motivated to work for the company. Motivation is largely a matter of psychology.

Answer 31

Try hiring programmers who have their own home project and spend some time on it. As well as one and a half hours of working time every day, allow me to work on my project.

Answer 32

I haven’t heard about the theft of ideas and their high-quality implementation for a long time (at least in the Russian market), but I can say more specifically about efficiency: the company that I left that year (social media and media monitoring service) quietly shrank from the team at 35 people in 5 without losing in turnover.
If you answer the question of what to do with your problem, then it remains to work hard and set the pace for the niche / grow, so that those who copy are always in the position of catching up, no matter what information they have.