Technology – Proprietary & Confidential
You know what they say about people who assume. When it comes to a company’s intellectual property, never assume anything. Just because you think something is proprietary and confidential doesn’t mean that it is, or that someone else will feel the same way you do. That’s why it’s a good idea to always err on the side of caution and make sure any documents that are part of a company’s intellectual property are labeled as such, password protected if necessary, and mentioned in the employee handbook as such. This may not keep them from getting stolen, but it will help a company should it need to file suit.
On Society for Human Resource Management, an article titled, Identify Your Trade Secrets to Prevail in IP Theft Litigation, lists a case where information was taken and used by a former employee because it wasn’t properly labeled as proprietary and confidential. Furthermore, it wasn’t identified in the employee handbook as a trade secret, nor was the employee required to sign a noncompete agreement. The issue at hand was a list of people, including their names, addresses, phone numbers, etc., held by the company. An employee took that list and used it for a competing business. The argument was that everyone within the company understood that the list was only for business purposes and was not publicly known, nor available to the public. The court, however, disagreed and ruled that the list was not a trade secret or confidential and proprietary information. The list was available to all staff and to the people on the list, so the company wasn’t trying to guard the secrecy of the information. Furthermore, most of the information was available in the public domain.
So, what is the lesson here for employers? Regardless of what the information may be, what technologies it may contain, or who has access to it, make sure everyone knows that it’s part of the company’s intellectual property and put in place safeguards that ensure this.
What kinds of safeguards are necessary? According to the article, as long as a company takes reasonable precautions by taking time to set up a system to protect information believed to be important, confidential, or proprietary, the system doesn’t have to be perfect.
So by limiting access to the information, keeping it secure, informing everyone who has access that the information is confidential, and designating the information as such in the employee handbook. It’s also a good idea, according to the article, to remind departing employees during their exit interview about any confidentiality obligations.
If something is worth protecting, then it’s worth the extra time and effort needed to ensure its security. Proprietary and confidential mean just that, and these terms should be taken seriously and not applied haphazardly.
Wellness – Dirty Devices
When we think of things that are dirty (real items, not someone’s mind), public restrooms immediately jump to the top of the list. Yet, in the grand scheme of things, there are items far dirtier and you probably handle them on a daily basis. You don’t need to be famous germophobes Howard Hughes or Howie Mandel to be concerned about this, but you should still be concerned.
According to an article on Forbes titled, 5 Gadgets With More Germs Than Your Toilet Seat, some of our everyday items carry thousands more bacteria per square inch than a public toilet. If that’s not gross, then I don’t know what is. So, let’s start with that most horrible of germy objects – the toilet. The average one in your home has between 50 and 300 bacteria per square inch. The average public toilet bumps that up to more than 1,000 per square inch. But if you think that’s bad, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
Since the advent of the smartphone, people have carried them everywhere they go. We put them in our pockets or purses, on car seats, we place them on restaurant tables, we handle them without washing our hands, and of course, we take them into the bathroom with us. And despite all this, we hold them right up to our face next to our ears, eyes, nose, and mouth. Yuck! In that same Forbes article, a study in 2012 had smartphones carrying 10 times more bacteria than most toilet seats and a 2013 study had that much higher at a staggering 25,107 bacteria per square inch. But before you go and disinfect your phone, you shouldn’t ignore these other havens for germs.
Tablets, e-readers, and other similar devices are just like a smartphone, only with a lot more surface area to catch all those nasty bacteria. Not too far down from those are keyboards. You know, the device with tiny keys that we put our fingers on after eating messy food or touching sticky things. If you have children, then you probably have a game controller in your home. Again, think about what your kids touch, and then consider how often they wash their hands. Yeah, all that gets put on the game controller along with thousands of bacteria. But adults don’t get a free pass at home either. That remote control near the TV – the one that gets stuck between couch cushions, dropped on the floor, and then handled with sticky fingers – is the perfect breeding ground for germs.
If you’re not freaking out right now, then you’re probably asking what you can do to clean up these devices and keep them clean. The first step is to never, ever under any circumstances take these into the bathroom. The next step is to wash your hands (or use a hand sanitizer) before handling these devices. And finally, clean these devices on a regular basis using gadget-friendly wipes.
EMPLOYER WEBINAR
Common Knowledge: Determining Who Is a Common Law Employee and Counting Them under the Affordable Care Act
Tuesday, October 13, 2015, 2:00 p.m. ET / 11:00 a.m. PT
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires employers to determine who their common law employees are and include them in their headcount to determine their applicable large employer (ALE) status. Sometimes determining an employee’s status as a common law employee can be difficult. This webinar will discuss best practices for determining common law employee status and how employers determine if they are an ALE. Registration for this webinar will be available soon!