An excellent article in Corporate Counsel lists these guidelines to help minimize the risk of preventing data from walking out the door:
- Ensure that employees sign confidentiality and invention-assignment agreements on the first day of work, if not before.
- Provide meaningful training.
- Gain control of remote-access and data-protection policies.
- Set up data protection and employee mobility restrictions affect incoming and outgoing employees.
- Let laptops cool off before allowing the IT department to repurpose them.
- Don’t rely on only unpredictable non-competition covenants alone.
I encourage you to read the entire article here.