CV migrates with memory stick

Some 85 percent of interviewees say they would have no problem leaving the company with information that would increase their value on the labor market, because their employers are not concerned about this.

Employees in Nordic countries are more honest than the rest of Europeans, being less willing to use the company database to the advan­tage of the competitors. The study also shows that four out of five em­ployees are  taking home information from their workplace, especially on a memory stick, in order to be able to work extra hours.

“Companies spend millions on security and they lose sight of the fact that information, which is equally expensive, could end up with the competition through former employees,” explained the company’s representative.

Romanian employees also have the habit of moving  to the competitors with valuable information. “One of the managers who wanted to get a job with our company came loaded with data bases and documentation for implementing SAP. That was confiden­tial information he took from the previous employer, but it was of no value to us,” remembers Yugo Neumorni, IT Director at ALRO Slatina. According to Neumorni, a security officer or system administrator could do a lot of da­mage even some time after leaving the company, because he might still have access to the company’s servers.

“Many consider that documents and information they contributed to are also theirs in some respect,” said Felix Enescu , president of the IT&C managers’ association, CIO Council. A typical case is that of sales personnel leaving with “sales leads” and contact lists. According to Enescu, IT employees leave with procedures, strategies, even whole programs. The copy­right law protects the author, and a programmer subject to a normal contract, without any special clause, has all the rights over the programs he designed during office hours.