I think that the idea behind such employee agreements is that they encourage the sharing of new ideas within companies, as employees will not 'hold the ideas back' to use when they go off and start their own companies.
> I think that the idea behind such employee agreements is that they encourage the sharing of new ideas within companies, as employees will not 'hold the ideas back' to use when they go off and start their own companies.
It's up to the company to provide incentive for workers to "share new ideas" by rewarding innovation within the company, not limiting where the employee can work. Of course, most companies don't do that, steal ideas from employees without rewarding them in any ways or even give them credit when an idea leads to a successful product. Boss A or manager B gets all the recognition, and the employee gets nothing.
The company thinks it is providing incentive for the employees to share the new ideas by paying their wages; their argument would be that if a prospective employee disagrees with the assessment of the value of the work and ideas, that individual should not accept the agreement.
That argument is flawed because an offer of employment is based on current and future expected value in a job role, not on unexpected new value that gets added by non required innovation. New ideas which bring new value should entitle an employee to additional new compensation if the company wants to claim ownership of those ideas regardless of where they are made.
IMO, more companies should use systems like YouEarnedIt to promote recognition of employees' contributions. My employer does, and I've learned a lot about what some people have done for us just by seeing their YEI recommendations on the screen in our break room.
