Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | January 22, 2018 | Worcester Business Journal 27 Noncompetes should protect IP, not trap employees The Worcester Business Journal welcomes letters to the editor and commentary submissions. Please send submissions to Brad Kane, editor, at bkane@wbjournal.com. W omen make up half of the American labor force, yet there are fields, particularly STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), where women continue to be vastly underrepresented. In Massachusetts, less than one- third of STEM employees are female. The good news is woman have no shortage of possibilities in STEM. Massachusetts consistently ranks as the No. 1 state in various technology economic impact indexes. Promising opportunities in Massachusetts can be found at companies and institutions focused on robotics and autonomous systems. The New England Chapter of AUVSI (Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International) boasts 350 member organizations in the region, ranging from startups to global companies and research institutions. AUVSI members reflect a significant portion of the estimated $427-billion annual regional technology market share. Unfortunately, it has long been an uphill battle to attract women to STEM. Once they are involved, there is often another uphill battle to keep them here. It seems a lot of the barriers to women in STEM come from basic stereo- types. Men and women have different life experiences con- tributing to how they approach situations. When women are not adequately represented, we miss out on their voice, their experiences, and the different perspective they bring. Organizations like Girls Who Code, which works to close the increasing gender gap among computer scientists, are reaching girls at younger ages. LEGO's recent Women of NASA set has been a top-seller, not only spreading awareness of the successful females in NASA and by exten- sion STEM, but helping society become more aware. Worcester Polytechnic Institute is shaping the next gen- eration of women in STEM beginning in our girls-only K-12 summer programs, such as Camp Reach and Innovations in Bioengineering. These efforts carry over into the collegiate realm as WPI provides professional development and leadership programs for its female stu- dents, such as a salary negotiation workshops. When women are missing from the ranks, they are miss- ing in leadership. This means young women and entry-lev- el employees are missing a female role model manager. Having women in leadership helps bring in other women; it naturally builds a network creating gender diversity. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects growth in new STEM jobs will outpace overall growth in occupations by 7 percent over the next 10 years. By 2022, at least 3 mil- lion STEM employees will be needed in the U.S. solely to replace the current workers in the field. How do we do that? We start small, start local, and stick with it. Companies have made a commitment to hiring women, only to see it fail to produce immediate results and the commitment falls to the wayside. Needing more women in STEM fields is not a flash in the pan. This need is real, and it is not going away. Rachel LeBlanc is assistant vice president at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the vice president of AUVSI New England. More women needed in STEM V I E W P O I N T E D I T O R I A L BY RACHEL LeBLANC Special to the Worcester Business Journal Rachel LeBlanc WO R D F R O M T H E W E B Tweets of the week "#CleanEnergy jobs the leading growth sector in big part due to very strong #solar energy growth. Thanks to @ WBJournal for summary." - BlueSel Commercial Solar (@BlueSelComm), Jan. 11, on a story about growth in solar and other clean energy industries "With a growing demand for trained #cybersecurity professionals, will #millennials fill the gap? bit.ly/2hxJCK4 by @ZWComeau via @WBJournal #IT #security" - Cartika Hosting (@cartikahosting), Jan. 10, on a story about a skills and labor gap in the cybersecurity workforce W Facebook feedback "It means we were used as a pawn." - Terri Guetti, Jan. 16, on the Rhode Island Senate approving an $83-million Pawtucket Red Sox stadium deal, casting doubt about the possibility the team would move to Worcester following its negotiations with the city "Many great family neighborhoods in Worcester. Hadwen Park for example is a safe neighbor with large affordable homes and is only five minutes from MassPike." - Mike Hersey, Jan. 9, on WBJ print story about Worcester County becoming a home-owning destination G etting new employees up to speed, from the time of hiring to when they are productive members of your team takes time and money. As employees become more effective at their jobs, they help the company achieve its goals and become more prosperous. So what happens when that talented employees want to take their talents, and deep knowledge of your organization across town? It seems reasonable for a company to say, "Don't take all this knowledge you've gained here and use it against us." Two years after the latest measure to address the noncompete agreement issue stalled out on Beacon Hill, the Massachusetts legislature again is primed to write and pass a reform law regulating aspects of noncompetes, such how long these agreements can stay in effect, who can be covered by them, and how employees under such restric- tions are compensated. The reform law still is being worked out, but the details will fall something akin to noncom- petes being limited to only higher-paid salaried employees and enforceable for only three to 12 months, while workers who leave a company will receive up to 50 percent of their salary while under the auspices of any noncompete agreement. After nearly a decade of debate and false starts to reform, we think of these new provisions are rea- sonable and should become law. Common sense would suggest if a company can give new employees 90 percent of their needed training in the first week or two, pays them less than $30 an hour or $60,000 a year, or can replace them without much difficulty, then they shouldn't be using noncompete agreements. Yes, there is always the danger of smaller companies becoming farm systems for larger, higher-paying organiza- tions (a frequent complaint of manufacturers). But in a market where unemployment is at historical lows, it can become untenable to be matching increasingly higher salary offers just to keep an employee on the bus. Good organizations know the game and work hard to have culture and other intangibles right so that money is not the sole decider in employees seeking greener pastures. California – held up on Beacon Hill as a thriv- ing high-tech economy – essentially does not allow noncompete agreements. However, we feel noncompetes are a legitimate way for businesses to protect their intellectual property from being used by a competitor who hires away an employ- ee, or in the case of a startup founded by an ex- employee who is looking to pilch clients or pro- prietary information from their former employer. These agreements should allow some protection for the keys to the kingdom you bestow on select senior staff. Yet they shouldn't be used to trap employees in their jobs. If an employee has reached the top of their salary range for their position and you don't have the willingness or ability to promote them into a higher-paying position, then both sides need to live with the fact it is time to move on. W

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