Morale at work has been super low for the past few years, ever since the CEO/President bragged about how well they did in 2021 “record profits, over and beyond anything we ever expected” and 2022 “we barely made more than we did last year”, but none of that success trickled down to the people responsible for that success. I’m surrounded by people actively looking for work elsewhere. So, to keep people from quitting, the company forced everyone to sign the agreement in the Imgur link I’ve attached. Of course it gives all power to the company, and of course we had to sign it under penalty of losing our jobs immediately.
This of course is in addition to Top Management blaming the Bottom Management for the morale issue, and rebranding poor morale as an “engagement issue”. They’re also forcing the workers to come up with solutions for the “engagement issue”, going so far as to put it on our annual reviews. Part of our “goals for the upcoming year” is to deal with “low engagement”. That’s right, if we don’t come up with solutions for our own morale problem, it will look poorly on our reviews.
I have worked for some brain-dead companies before, but I’ve never seen such myopia in Leadership. At least previously I knew I was getting fucked on purpose. Right now I’m not sure if it’s an accident.
As others said you may need a lawyer to look over it which can be expensive, however, since many employees are affected, you can pool your resources together and split the lawyer fees.
As it is, point 2 from this page seems relevant:
https://www.maxwellgoss.com/post/beat-your-non-compete-five-ways-out-of-a-non-compete-agreement