Employee infidelity
Employee infidelity is a term that refers to significant disloyalty on the part of an employee to his employer. This type of behavior can range from planned corporate espionage on behalf of a competitor to internal sabotage in retaliation for some perceived offense by the business against the employee.
Common types of Employee Infidelity at work
•Working for a Competitor
•When an employee leaves your company, they may be obliged to work for a competitor. Some former employees tend to divulge information such as the list of customers, passwords to their competitors, or trade secrets, to their new employer. Such action is illegal. If the employee shares with the competitor information about the company, that may not be legal, depending on what is being shared.
•Limiting Your Exposure
•This is a simple act of disloyalty or poor work performance, such as calling in sick frequently, playing computer games during working hours, or stealing office supplies, which are not true acts of employee infidelity. Purposeful damage to the company, hurting the business, or helping to enrich a competitor at the company’s expense, are breaches of fidelity.
•Sabotage
•An employee can sabotage their company by planting a virus on the company’s network; destroying sensitive materials, This includes introducing the malware into the company’s database causing system errors leading to fraud and breaches which will significantly affect the company’s policy, controls, and customer experience resulting to loss of funds and sometimes trust.
•Espionage
•If your employee gives information about your company to a competitor while he works for you, that is considered espionage. Examples of this include sharing customer databases, intellectual property, trade secrets, or other sensitive information with competitors to help them gain an advantage that is caused by hidden interest.
4 Points to note in curtailing Employee Infidelity
+General login details and passwords should be changed frequently. Former employees’ login details and accessibility should be disabled.
+Key employees should sign no-compete clauses and adhere to internal policies and procedures.
+Employees should sign confidentiality agreements when given sensitive information and roles to avoid breach of confidentiality.
+ Head of departments should be advised to introduce safeguards, checks inspections, backups, and other security measures to prevent and deal with employee sabotage.