• You will hear a college lecturer talking to a class of business students about protecting company secrets． • As you listen

M：Now，in this session，we’ll look at the issue of protecting company secrets．I’ll be giving out ageneral introduction first，and then doing a case study in detail．
   As we know，eVery company has secrets．Some confidential company information can be so important that if your competitors got hold of it，your company could suffer very serious financial losses．
   Some types of secrets include financial information，details about how your company makes products，like Coke，and future business plans．
   Every year，many companies lose millions(and sometimes billions)of dollars due to corporate spies，who are highly trained to obtain information from one company for sale to another company．
   Safely protecting company secrets is the responsibility of every employee．You expect your company to be able to pay you on time，so you’d try to keep it from losing all of its valuable data to its competitors．
   Now here’s the story of a senior manager，Mr.Barnard，at a large company．He has lhe prolem of having to layoff a dozen people and at the same time making sure that those who are terminated won’t steal confidential company documents as a way of retribution．
   Mr.Barnard goes to a business consultant，and was given two kinds of advice to deal with the problem.The first way is to open the phone book and find a company that specializes in ‘ Executive Protec tion’，like a bodyguard．Many of these companies offer what is known as‘ TerminatlOn Service’．The Termination Service not only protects company property like company documents，but they’ll normally have security agents，who are ready to act in case someone’s emotions get the be~er of them．Or if someone is taking two or three hours to clean out his desk，a security agent will step in to monitor the sltuatlOn and serve as a witness．The rule is that the terminated can take their personal possessions and nothing else．
   However，if this method can be seen as a possible violation of someone’s human rights，another milder method would be the signing of non-compete agreements which restrict the layoffs from workina for competitors．
   Non-competes can be a valuable tool，keeping your most important assets，er，for example，your kev employees，from taking their expertise to a competitor．BuI for many companies，the value of a noncompete agreement lies in its psychological effect，not its enforceability．Some employers view non-competes as a retention tool rather than a method of protecting intellectual property．But a badly designed non-compete won’t be enough to keep your best performers from leaving．You will have to tread carefully if You actually want your non-compete to do its job．Here are several things to keep in mind．Amona them，the most important principal would be to decide the kind of information you really wanted to keep secret.Of course，you also need to communicate well with your employees before they come into the company…(voice fades away)