I seem to remember that my contract of employment has a clause saying something along the lines that, if I change firms, then I cannot work for any of the clients I worked with during my current employment for 12 months. Anyone else have a contract like this? How do people change firms and take their clients with them? Waiting 12 months isn't really ideal. Is this kind of thing actually enforceable?

Martin I will crush you if I find you've taken clients.

Standard terms for a consultant and VERY enforcable.Large firms will throw their weight around because it costs them nothign to point a lawyer already on retained in your direction.Small firms will com after you because every £ counts to them, and it will generally be easier for a small firm to show that you were personally involved in stealign the client.If you go ahead and do it, and you get sued, then (no offense) you desreve what you get

No firms ever enforce this clause - whether you go to a client or a competitor - for the simple reason that it doesn't make good business sense. The only company I've heard of who look to sue their own staff when they leave is PA. Look where it's got them!

@ Nonsensedepends on the seniority of the consultant. If you are senior enough you will get sued.It does not impact the client - it is the consultant that is sued PERSONALLY

PA will definitely pursue you if you poach either staff (within 6 months) or clients (within 12 months).Nothing more than you might expect from a caring company like PA

Does PA still have the 'good' and 'bad' leaver concept?Never ceased to amaze me when consultants left to work for clients they were classed as 'bad' leavers.

Whether 'good' or 'bad' leavers at PA, they are all of them 'lucky' leavers.

PA do still have the "good" and "bad" leaverThey call it "regretted" and "non-regretted"!

That's funny as I resigned recently and whilst I've been told they regret it I've been made a 'bad leaver'. Such a juvenile concept.

the regretted v non-regretted distinction is hardly unique to PA - most places have a version of this, and 'regretted attrition' is a typical HR metric.. what may vary are the parameters that get you upon one or the other classification

My last transfer from a niche consultancy was a regretted leave... from what the HR director said it means only that they would be open to re-hiring you if you decided to apply. Not sure what metrics it feeds into for churn.

...wonder how many regret leaving PA though?I imagine a lot less than "non-regretted"

interesting from a data protection point of view that such as value-judgement based and charged piece of data can be held about an individual - anyone here have the legal knowledge to comment on that?

Is the list of non-regretted people basically a blacklist?

It is a blacklist.I did hear that last year PA made someone redundant, who then went to work for a client and they tried to sue them for breach of contract!

Only two of the 12 companies I have worked for did not have a list of some description relating to whether people who had left should be taken back on again. The other two used to speak to people who had worked with the leavers the first time round.Wise up. It happens.

JT yeh I heard that. I also heard that PA pull the wings off butterflies and torture small children. How can they continue to get away with such acts of evil. Well done for keeping on their case.

@oddbod - Think of it this way - if an employee was terminated with prejudice due to violating policies, a company would keep that on their record to avoid the risk of him getting re-fired further down the line. Same if an employee left on redundancy - as a hiring manager the circumstances in which someone left the last time are relevant to his long-term relationship with the company (i.e., is he just a salary tart as Mr Cool would say?)

JT - I also heard that story about PA sueing its own staff after making them redundant.Nothing surprises me about that company.