Employers face a difficult challenge in times of labor shortages. On one hand, they want to prevent their employees from taking jobs with other employers. On the other hand, when they cannot fill their employment slots using passive techniques, they must hire other employers' top performers. In this session, we'll take a close look at head-to-head competition for employees and explore why employers on the losing end of these battles are crying "foul!" and claiming that the companies that are hiring their employees are behaving unethically.

Hiring another company's employees, or talent poaching, is no different than any other type of business competition. Instead of competing for customers, employers are competing for the hearts and minds of hard-working people. Even when the issues of unfair competition and breach of contract are taken off the table, people seem to think there is something wrong with lateral hiring. In this session, we will explore four reasons why the losers in the talent battles think their rivals are not playing fair. We'll examine a broad range of thinking on this most interesting topic and come to conclusions that make sense for the 21st century.