‘The evolution of poaching has begun, and there is no turning back’

May I suggest that the Author become more aware of the evolution of privacy and anti predatory hiring statutes that are being and have been implemented in the 50 states and also in Other Countries – including Canada, the EEC’s countries, Australia, Japan, and China. (to name a few)

How one may have been able to hire 20 years ago is not the same today….and there is no turning back on that factor either. The internet has changed the outlook on obtaining data due to privacy issues. We can only expect it to get worse not better.

You can either hire them because they are the best in the business and you want them working for you or, according to the article, you can hire them with the specific intention of inflicting damage on their company.

I?m not saying don?t hire them, I?m saying hire them for the right reasons. Hire them because they are the best not because of some bird brained idea that it?s smart to damage another company.

That?s all.

It is not only disastrous for the company but it also affects the community, and all businesses that are involved with it. How ? well it will start with the employee morale getting low, people quit or leave due to lack of support, sales or mgmt- (where was affected initially). Of course that now affects the sales of the company, and of course as clients leave due to lack of support from staff more employees will have lower self confidence in the company. (what a Catch 22)

Now the company is going to have problems paying their bills and staff, which causes more problems ? now customers who depend on them for payment are also going to have struggles themselves, which will in turn affect their business.

Recruiting one sales person, or one manager at a time well that is easy to get over.. gee people quit and people get hired. But, a whole team, a whole department, all the sales staff.. that is another story..

We may call this Guerilla Marketing.. it is appearing to be more like Baboon Marketing

Anthony, in your review you say:

‘Poach from your competition to bring you the best people. Do it to enhance your own company and to better the individual but don?t do it to deliberately damage your competition, for any reason.’

Won’t the by-product of your hiring from your competiton be that you will damage them in some form or another? If you are able to successfully bring on board their top sales person, their revenues will decline. If you hire their innovation leader then you have damaged the future growth of the organization.

Anytime you successfully hire away a top performer from any company, damage will be done in one form or another (revenue, morale, future offerings, customer service, etc.).

I agree with you, go after the best, but let’s also be realistic and admit to the fact that damage will be done. If you target the top performers in your competition (which you should do as part of your talent strategy) you will cause them some harm, either short or long term.

You can’t have it both ways, it just doesn’t work like that. Productivity and profitability are 2 key indicators of a company’s success. Recruiters need to have the mindset that everyone they bring into an organization should have a positive impact on these 2 points. The well being of the competition should not play a part in the decision to go after someone.

My biggest concern is the lack of responsibility that many of the authors who present this information have towards their readers. There is so much implication that ?poaching? is A-OK, well Duh, it isn?t ? Recruiting is fine and dandy, there are no laws against offering candidates a better opportunity? None whatsoever.. But like Anthony has stated, it is the how it is done that is the problem.

Even our Gentile Author used to make mention of this fact in other articles in the past. The times have changed, yes it is true, but the rules have become stricter, as states have been adopting more anti predatory hiring regulations? It ain?t getting prettier that is for sure.

For example ? YES I present information again that is valid Non-American researchers who are focusing on US companies should be cautious to operate within legal and ethical boundaries. In reality, so much information is available through legal means that taking illegal actions really does seem well unnecessary and not too smart.

Anyone who is collecting information on American Companies should be aware of several regulations that can ultimately impact their efforts. The first is the Economic Espionage Act, passed in 1996, which defines many areas of economic espionage as a criminal offense. If convicted, offenders can be sentenced to 10 years in prison and fines of up to $500,000 for an individual and $5,000,000 for a company can be given.

I will Not give an in depth review of the law as the information can be found easily on the internet but please note that it can mean as much as illegally securing marketing plans, customer lists, product information and other sensitive data.

A great one to also review might be Utah?s Anti Predatory hiring Law passed early this year, as well as Colorado?s very strict New act created this year under the Under the Colorado Uniform Trade Secrets Act, C.R.S. ?7-74-101, et seq.
Which CLEARLY States
?The Tenth Circuit, which helps determine law for Colorado, has held that predatory hiring practices are illegal if they (1) impair opportunities of rivals and (2) aren’t competition on the merits or (3) are more restrictive than reasonably necessary and (4) the conduct appears reasonably capable of contributing significantly to creating or maintaining monopoly power. But the Tenth Circuit has noted that ‘the hiring of a rival’s employees is not ordinarily exclusionary.’

It also may be necessary to mention that Colorado goes on to mention that a A trade secret is considered confidential business or financial information, listing of names, addresses, or telephone numbers, or other information relating to any business or profession ? Nevada states a trade secret is one if it says Private or confidential (ie a business telephone directory

So It does come down to a simple word ? Poaching ? meaning Predatory, or Recruiting which is really pretty standard?

I left it simple, I found the information, and so can others; An important factor that many of us miss is that in America, lack of knowledge or ignorance of the laws don’t wash with the judges.

Controversial articles are what we all like because it stimulates response and it makes our next visit to ERE all the more exciting to see what someone else has to say.

Dr Sullivan?s articles do seem to be pretty much the same and now we have yet another article on poaching. Like the other ones, it contains the one point that seems to be either entirely missed or deliberately ignored. It would be pretty hard to miss so I can only assume it is ignored.

The point of ethics in poaching is not the act itself but rather the intent of the act

The traditional meaning of the word poaching is when you take something illegally.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poaching, as of 2005, the verb is also often used to refer to the act of hiring employees who are already employed by another company (especially a competitor) or trying to do so by offering contracts to already employed persons. So in this sense, if you search, you poach. You can?t do one without the other.

When the word poaching is used to describe the type of action you use to entice someone else?s staff to work for you, everyone knows what you mean. Unless you work with the unemployed, I guess it?s hard to recruit without poaching someone from somewhere

There is no confusion when using the word in the right context. After all you can poach an egg but no one accuses you of cooking candidates. So in the world of recruitment, when someone says poaching, they really mean searching.

“Searching the best talent worldwide” as a heading does not have the same impact but is probably a more accurate heading for this article. Using the word poaching is just more controversial.

Now, back to the issue and the one sentence in the article that crosses the line and it?s not the word poaching. It?s the intent of the action.

Poaching to “Damaging your competitors’ ability to achieve their strategic objectives”

If the intention is to deliberately damage your competition in any way shape or form, the action becomes (that dreaded word on ERE and I apologise for mentioning it again) unethical and in some Countries illegal.

It also brings the more sinister meaning to the other hyped up expression ?war for talent?, because rather than trying to recruit the best people for your own company, you are deliberately trying to inflict harm on another and therefore making you the perpetrator and the one actually trying to create a war.

The only real beneficiaries in all this are the warmongers whose business it is to sell their services on how to fight a war.

Poach from your competition to bring you the best people. Do it to enhance your own company and to better the individual but don?t do it to deliberately damage your competition, for any reason.

The article compared all this to football (soccer). Buying players from another club to get the best players does indeed happen all the time. It is part of the game as is hiring your competitor?s staff to get better people.

Hiring them to deliberately inflict damage however is more akin to trying to break a player?s leg to put them out of action. You know it?s wrong, it?s bad sportsmanship, the player welfare is not being considered and it?s the act of desperation.

Be competitive, be tough but be fair.

Oh and hiring your competitions best staff has been happening for many years. It really is nothing new. Ask IBM.