RaisedintheBiz
New Member
If anyone can offer solid advice, or even just support, it would be greatly appreciated. Bear with me, because this might get confusing.
Quick facts:
-My mother owns two salons. I'll refer to one as "North" and the other as
"South."
-She is currently out of the country with no way to reach her. She'll be back next week.
-My cousin, also a business partner, is currently the decision-maker.
-"Mike" and "Sue" are two of our top five moneymaking employees, and they are husband and wife. Mike works at North, Sue at South.
-"Billy" is the manager at North, "Bobby" is the manager at South.
-Billy and Mike do not get along at all.
Since Mike and Sue make so much money, my mother tends to be overly lenient with them, allowing them to come late and leave early, etc. They have a huge customer following, and their revenue is excellent for the business. However, there had been rumors circulating that the pair desired to leave for a rival salon chain in the area. My mother refused to believe it, and took no actions to even find out if there was any truth to the gossip.
Yesterday, however, Billy was angered by Mike's irresponsibility, claiming that Mike came in late and then left without any regard to his appointments. He drove down to the rival salon hoping to catch Mike in the act, and to his surprise found Sue working there instead. Sue works full time at South, and had called in sick that day. Wary of confronting her, Billy called Bobby to ask for his advice, and Bobby quickly informed me.
I offered to drive down there to catch her myself, so that Billy would appear to have no connection to the affair, because otherwise Mike would maintain an even deeper vendetta against him. Both Billy and Bobby were eager to have me personally discover Sue. My cousin brought up the point that perhaps Billy was making it up in order to have them both fired, so seeing her with my own eyes would be irrefutable proof.
I was actually over an hour away, however, and by the time I got to the area, Mike had returned to North and left again, presumably to pick up his wife. I reached the salon with my friend, who pretended to need a pedicure, and disappointedly did not see her. Regardless, my cousin felt that it was time to let them both go, before either of them could steal all the clientele.
This morning, they both came to work and swore vehemently that they had too much integrity to ever pull anything like that. My cousin felt she had no choice but to let them stay, especially since my mother is out of town and unable to offer any input on the matter. She feels helpless, but admits that it's just one word against another person's, since I never did see her.
We have several concerns. 1st, they really might be planning to leave, and are using this extra time to collect customer numbers in preparation for it. 2nd, they might've tried it out for one day to see how the business was, and decided that they'd make way more money at our place. With this possibility, we'd still want them out of there, for their lack of loyalty. What makes it even trickier is that the owners of the rival chain are their friends and have been wooing them; thus we cannot just directly ask them if Sue had in fact been working there.
Finally, to get to my question for all of you out there (besides the "what would you do" inquiry), I think our best option is to write up a contract that expressly forbids them to work within a ten mile radius of the area, for a certain amount of time after they stop working for us. If they refuse to sign, we won't let them work for us. After all, they've sworn up and down that they want to stay and would give warning if they wanted to leave, so signing this shouldn't be a problem. But is that even legal? Are there such statutes that can be enforced in a situation like this? Please help, and thanks for taking the time to read this!
Quick facts:
-My mother owns two salons. I'll refer to one as "North" and the other as
"South."
-She is currently out of the country with no way to reach her. She'll be back next week.
-My cousin, also a business partner, is currently the decision-maker.
-"Mike" and "Sue" are two of our top five moneymaking employees, and they are husband and wife. Mike works at North, Sue at South.
-"Billy" is the manager at North, "Bobby" is the manager at South.
-Billy and Mike do not get along at all.
Since Mike and Sue make so much money, my mother tends to be overly lenient with them, allowing them to come late and leave early, etc. They have a huge customer following, and their revenue is excellent for the business. However, there had been rumors circulating that the pair desired to leave for a rival salon chain in the area. My mother refused to believe it, and took no actions to even find out if there was any truth to the gossip.
Yesterday, however, Billy was angered by Mike's irresponsibility, claiming that Mike came in late and then left without any regard to his appointments. He drove down to the rival salon hoping to catch Mike in the act, and to his surprise found Sue working there instead. Sue works full time at South, and had called in sick that day. Wary of confronting her, Billy called Bobby to ask for his advice, and Bobby quickly informed me.
I offered to drive down there to catch her myself, so that Billy would appear to have no connection to the affair, because otherwise Mike would maintain an even deeper vendetta against him. Both Billy and Bobby were eager to have me personally discover Sue. My cousin brought up the point that perhaps Billy was making it up in order to have them both fired, so seeing her with my own eyes would be irrefutable proof.
I was actually over an hour away, however, and by the time I got to the area, Mike had returned to North and left again, presumably to pick up his wife. I reached the salon with my friend, who pretended to need a pedicure, and disappointedly did not see her. Regardless, my cousin felt that it was time to let them both go, before either of them could steal all the clientele.
This morning, they both came to work and swore vehemently that they had too much integrity to ever pull anything like that. My cousin felt she had no choice but to let them stay, especially since my mother is out of town and unable to offer any input on the matter. She feels helpless, but admits that it's just one word against another person's, since I never did see her.
We have several concerns. 1st, they really might be planning to leave, and are using this extra time to collect customer numbers in preparation for it. 2nd, they might've tried it out for one day to see how the business was, and decided that they'd make way more money at our place. With this possibility, we'd still want them out of there, for their lack of loyalty. What makes it even trickier is that the owners of the rival chain are their friends and have been wooing them; thus we cannot just directly ask them if Sue had in fact been working there.
Finally, to get to my question for all of you out there (besides the "what would you do" inquiry), I think our best option is to write up a contract that expressly forbids them to work within a ten mile radius of the area, for a certain amount of time after they stop working for us. If they refuse to sign, we won't let them work for us. After all, they've sworn up and down that they want to stay and would give warning if they wanted to leave, so signing this shouldn't be a problem. But is that even legal? Are there such statutes that can be enforced in a situation like this? Please help, and thanks for taking the time to read this!
