Poaching: Not Just a Hunter’s Problem

I was playing catch up on email this morning, and came across this article on ComputerWorld

Employee Poaching: Talent Battle in India coming to the US court

In a nut shell, the article discusses the poaching of IT staff from other companies. In case you’re not familiar with the practice, poaching is hiring a seasoned IT pro from another company, either a competitor or just another company. As with anything, the company doing the poaching is after the top performers at another organization. Apparently two Off Shore companies based in the US are going to court because one company is allegedly trying to take employees from the other company…..the caveat? The employees are in India.

Ok, as I have made clear I am not a fan of Off Shoring, call me a short sided protectionist if you want, but what business is it of the court’s to determine to where people can work? Last I checked, business was a cut throat game. In the end it’s all about the best interests of the company or in this case the employee. If an employee at company A gets a better offer from company B, why shouldn’t said employee take the offer? If company A offers 50 people at company B a better offer, why can’t they take it? I think it’s a good thing businesses are having to compete for employee retention. Why?

It’s a funny thing in the business world. Organizations want unfettered loyalty from the employee, but the employee does not get unfettered loyalty from the organization. Take the recession, companies downsized their staff  or slashed benefits, pay, and perks so they could remain competitive. Now that the companies are on the upswing…how quickly are they restoring what was taken?So why shouldn’t a person at company A take company B’s offer?

I’m afraid if the court gets involved, there will be some ugly provision for employees wanting to leave for better opportunities. Ya I know, the article was about poaching in India…but US courts are going to decide this, so it’ll affect employees in the US just as much. Not zesty.

Personally, I think the US government does enough for businesses and protecting their interests. I think they should leave this one alone. In fact, I think a constitutional argument could be made about the pursuit of happiness (yes I know that’s in the Declaration of Independence, but it’s a founding concept of this country).