Do I put the dogs on my treacherous former employee?

Dear Aunty B,

I recently found out that one of my employees who resigned almost a year ago has joined a competing business. I am sure she is going to go after our clients.

I feel sick and angry that we provided her with a decade of training and skill development and she is setting out to ruin us. She refused to tell us where she was going when she left and she will be breaching her no compete clause if she goes after any clients, although that is almost up.

But it was one of my clients who told me where she had turned up as she rang them to suggest they have a friendly catch up over lunch. Friendly ha! She wants to poach them. She didn’t leave on good terms after falling out with my business partner so don’t suggest ringing her up.

What I want to know Aunty is do I set the dogs on her? Or do I wait for more evidence before getting our lawyers to act? This is really eating me up.

ST,
SA

Dear ST,

Where does it say in your business plan that you should spend every day ruminating and stressing over past events that were probably unavoidable? Where does it say in your strategic plan that you should spend your day in a lather thinking about lawyers? Haven’t you got better things to do than worry about an employee who left a year ago and has every right really, to be exercising her skills wherever she wants?

Here is what you should be doing. From this second on, pour all that energy into shoring up relationships with your clients. You look at your clients one by one and work out who needs a bit of extra love, who needs lunch, who needs a visit.

Have a look at the service you are offering them. Are they getting great results? Do they know they are getting great results? How can you help your clients look great to their boss? What new ideas for innovative products can you think up? How can you turn all that into extra profit? See? While you are thinking of all that you haven’t thought of her once. She has moved on. You need to as well.

Be smart,
Your Aunty B

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