Standard employee confidentiality agreement

What is a standard employee confidentiality agreement and when should you use it?

Almost all businesses have confidential and private information, from product plans and customer lists to software and blueprints.

In many cases, disclosure of such confidential information could seriously damage a company, particularly if that information falls into the hands of competitors.

Moreover, in our technological world, data can span the entire globe within hours (if not minutes).

A comprehensive employee confidentiality (non-disclosure) agreement is thus critical to protecting your information, giving notice to all of your staff members that they have a serious and ongoing duty of confidentiality to the company.

The simple act of stating the importance of protecting such information can be valuable.

A confidentiality agreement signed at the start of an employment relationship alerts a prospective employee that your company considers this a tremendously important matter.

By signing the agreement, the employee acknowledges that the disclosure of confidential information is a breach of their employment contract, a fact that has serious and wide-ranging consequences.

Moreover, the agreement’s existence allows the parties to enter into an open discussion about company business.

Questions can and should be answered before employment, and parties should have the opportunity to discuss those questions with full information on both sides.

This template is our standard employee confidentiality agreement best suited to general employees.

It is drafted in very simple terms.

A well-drafted contract of employment will include many of the covenants in this agreement.

If your employee’s contract of employment includes such confidentiality clauses there is no requirement for a separate confidentiality agreement.

However, if the employee’s contract does not include the necessary clauses, it is recommended that in addition to their contract, the employee should sign a confidentiality agreement so that both parties are protected by law.

Due to the simplicity of this agreement it is not suited to middle or senior management. 

For more senior employees you should use our senior employee confidentiality agreement instead.