Employee Betrayal: How Should I Handle a Staff Member Stealing Clients for His Own Business?

Hello, everyone, I need serious help here. As an owner, I recently discovered that one of my employees has been cheating us for a long time. He started his own similar business firm a few months ago and is now operating from my office while actually working for his own company. Furthermore, he has been redirecting all our business clients and connections to his own firm. We have a signed Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) with him, clearly stating that he cannot engage in such activities while employed here.

Taking Decisive Action

We must take decisive action on this matter. Please advise me on where to begin and suggest the best possible ways to recover from this situation.

In addition, I have also uncovered that some employees are supporting him in this fraudulent activity and are essentially working for him while physically present in my office.

I urgently seek guidance on the appropriate course of action to address these issues.

Thank you.

Identifying the Line of Business

What is the line of business your company is in?

Customer Loss Analysis

List out customers whom you have lost due to this activity. Discreetly try to find out why they have left.

Monitoring the Employee

Keep a tab on this employee. What is the modus operandi of this person in taking away customers? Is he working through the company laptop? In that case, suddenly withdraw his laptop and give him another so the laptop can be checked for evidence. This will have to be done suddenly and without time to delete evidence.

Adjusting Job Profiles

Change the job profile of some of the employee friends whom you suspect are involved in this racket.

Enhancing Supervision

Step up the level of supervision and introduce additional authentications for jobs being done by the person and his friends.

Reviewing NDA Clauses

Post the clauses of the NDA (suitably masking names, etc.) relevant to the discussion.

Understanding the Employee's Role

What is the job profile of the employee who is cheating you?

Testing Employee Reactions

Does your office have any business tours or other branches? If so, temporarily send him elsewhere on the pretext of work just to see his reaction.

Legal Action and Dismissal

After collecting evidence, you can sue him for violation of the NDA, besides dismissing him following due procedures.

Further to my above post, find out details of your employee's new firm to build up evidence. Once evidence is accumulated, you can initiate firm action against him and his friends.

Agreed with Mr. Nathrao on your next line of action. As an owner of the company, you have all the rights to protect your business. However, at the same time, you are also dealing with a cheating employee protected under the labor law. You will need as much evidence as possible to be collected before you move in. You may also want to hire a private investigator to collect the needed evidence.

With all the details in hand, not only could you terminate him, but if the law permits, you may also want to sue him for damages or loss of business.

I concur with what Nathrao & Ravindran Raman suggested. The core principle in such situations is to collect as much evidence as possible BEFORE you move to take action, whatever it may be. Otherwise, such individuals won't leave you anything to prove. I suggest consulting a Criminal Advocate to determine WHAT evidence you need to gather to make your allegations stick in court—basically work backwards.

Regarding the possible actions AFTER you gather the evidence, I would suggest you go for a Criminal/Police Complaint rather than a normal legal suit—that will be more effective and, more importantly, protect your client base. You can inform this aspect later to all of the clients you seem to have lost because of these individuals. That will seal their fate for the future too.

All the best.

Regards,
TS