Can my company stop me from staying in touch with colleagues after I left?

[Cinai2]

I was working for a company on a freelance contract for the past few years. I’ve handed in my notice and the company boss wrote back to accept it and inform me of my obligations:

• do not contact any of their clients for a one-year period
• do not contact any colleagues for a one year period.

Now, the first point is fair enough, but can they forbid me staying in touch with my colleagues? The same thing happened when another colleague left some time ago, the company boss emailed me and others and said that she’s not permitted to contact us and that if she does, we should report it to them.

I would like to message a couple of colleagues to tell them that I’m leaving and to give them my personal number and email address so that we can stay in touch. I can only do this via company channels because we all work remotely. Will I get in trouble if I do this and it comes out?

Also, one of my clients has invited me to an event later this year, I’ve already explained to this client that I’m leaving and it’s been discussed that a colleague takes over working with them, but they said I’m still welcome to attend in a personal capacity. Can I do that?

How odd. Do they maybe mean, don't contact colleagues about work stuff i.e. to ask for copies of files or a client's contact details? Because I doubt they could stop you arranging to meet up for a coffee and chat about your holidays or whatever, especially if it was done via your personal numbers.

What did your contract say when you signed it?

Of course they can’t. They might be able to stop you talking about work although I’d expect that obligation to sit with their employees, but they can’t dictate your social life. You’re not in Witness Protection!

The company has can't have legal standing to prevent you from contacting people on a personal basis. By all means keep in contact with them, and see clients in a personal capacity.

Even if you have a restrictive covenant in your contract, it could only be enforced if they had a legitimate business reason for doing so.

Non-solicitation clauses around clients are enforceable providing that they aren’t for an onerously restrictive period and there’s a clear case to be made about protecting the former employer’s confidential business information, and more likely to be legally upheld than non-compete clauses, which are generally considered punitive. Preventing you attending an event in a personal capacity is likely unenforceable.

They can’t prevent you from having social contact with former colleagues; former colleagues still employed could, of course, face disciplinary action if there was evidence this contact was being used to provide you confidential business information.

They can stop you getting confidential information from staff. They can also stop you encouraging staff to leave and join your new employer. They can also tell staff that they must not meet with you or have any social contact with you and potentially take disciplinary action against any staff who do.

I appreciate you're a lawyer so I'm asking this as a genuine question, not as someone questioning your knowledge. How can a company dictate, enforce or take disciplinary action against employees who keep in touch with someone on a social basis? Surely nobody can restrict who you spend time with outside of work?

Tbh if you've been working with them this whole time and dont even have personal contact details then do you really need to keep in touch? Would they even want to at the risk of disciplinary action?

I also wouldn't attend the clients function.chsnces are they are just being polite but even if not, if you show up its going to be awkward.

You could run it by your trade union officer if you're a member, or source legal advice through ACAS or an employment lawyer.
I can't help but wonder what industry you're in?

An employer can legally restrict your out-of-work activities provided they can show that they have a legitimate, justifiable business reason for doing so. This may be protecting the company's reputation or its intellectual property, for example, but there can be many other reasons. The question is whether they can justify their reasons for restricting out-of-work activities to an employment tribunal should a case get that far.

Of course, they can only take action if they find out what the employee has been doing. And we know that many employers do things they shouldn't, so some employers may take action against employees for out-of-work activities even when they would not be able to justify their actions to an employment tribunal.

No, although they could ask colleagues not to speak to you theoretically. Their relationship is with current staff, not you. They'd have to have good cause.

Thanks! Is there much precedent set for winning/losing at a tribunal in those sorts of cases? Wondered how high the bar is to prove they have a legitimate reason.

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Check your contract.

I certainly think that a company can prevent their employees from contacting you, or act should that happen.

There are certainly some precedents, but you would need to talk to an employment lawyer to understand how high the bar is.

Did you have something in your original contract? If so it might impact on the client related one. Nobody can stop you keeping in touch with colleagues/friends at work.

They are not the OP's employer. The OP says they she has been working on a freelance basis. That makes the OP self-employed, and the company her client.
🙂

What happens if you bump into them? Do you ignore them?

I think it’s unenforceable!

These sorts of contracts / exit agreements have to judged as reasonable to be enforceable by a court.

Very few employers would see taking their staff to court over a social coffee as a good use of their legal budget. IF however, that contact led to other staff leaving / loss of a key customer / something else detrimental to the business then that’s a different story. But a genuinely social meeting with no business intent is impossible to reasonably prevent

If you read my previous posts you will see that I was talking about the company's ability to discipline their employees if they have any contact with OP after she leaves.

What woukd they fo about meeting people accidentally? I've met a fair few current and former colleagues in town over the years, just in the shopping centre, changing trains, farmers market, supermarket. In my younger days, I shared a house with s former colleague, I've been on holiday with colleagues, been a bridesmaid for one, had a couple of relationships. And I grew up in a small town, where everyone will know someone.

Security requirements on my role will mean I will have some restrictions even after I leave. I wouldn't be able to talk about the work, but you could talk about whether Dave ever manage to get with the woman he fancied, or did Sarah's daughter get her grades for uni, and did Mike ever finish decorating his flat, things like that.

They can absolutely stop you talking about work, stealing ideas, poaching clients, but if they succeed in stopping all social contact - well, they're not living in the same world I am.

(There are some former colleagues I would happily never see again, but I actually got on quite well with a lot of them.)

Thanks all. My contract says something along the lines of not contacting clients and associates, and then continues to talk about the clients. I guess colleagues could fall under ‘associates’.

Anyways, I might just drop them a line to say that I’m leaving and add my personal contact details.

How would they ever know if you met up with a colleague?

If they are personal friends fine but if you don’t have private information for them then they don’t need to let you use the company email etc. As for the clients, check your contract, typically there is a period of time written into it though a year seems disproportionate, 6 months is commonplace, attending an event in 6+ months time I would do because a cause wouldn’t uphold such a long period

Court!