Losing a key employee is never easy—they often take with them institutional knowledge, great internal and external relationships, and critical skill sets. Some even may leave behind a leadership vacuum or rupture a team’s cohesion. All this is difficult enough, but if they take confidential information with them, it becomes a more pressing challenge. Organizations today rely heavily upon technology and electronically stored information (ESI)—and when employees leave, there’s always a risk that they’ll take some information or data with them when they go, either inadvertently or on purpose.

This poses organizational risks in terms of data privacy and security, intellectual property and competitive positioning, so it’s important for legal and compliance teams to identify risks associated with departing employees, and to adopt policies to safeguard valuable information.

Modern Work Practices