Episode 1714 - Non-competes: gone for good?

Alan Fredendall // #LeadershipThursday // www.ptonice.com

In today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show, ICE Chief Operating Officer Alan Fredendall discusses the history of non-compete agreements, relevance of non-competes to PTs, and recent law changes banning non-competes.

Take a listen to the podcast episode or check out the full show notes on our blog at www.ptonice.com/blog.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

ALAN FREDENDALLHey everybody, Alan here. Currently I have the pleasure of serving as their Chief Operating Officer here at ICE. Before we jump into today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show, let's give a shout out to our sponsor Jane, a clinic management software and EMR. Whether you're just starting to do your research or you've been contemplating switching your software for a while now, the Jane team understands that this process can feel intimidating. That's why their goal is to provide you with the onboarding resources you need to make your switch as smooth as possible. Jane offers personalized calls to set up your account, a free date import, and a variety of online resources to get you up and running quickly once you switch. And if you need a helping hand along the way, you'll have access to unlimited phone, email, and chat support included in your Jane subscription. If you're interested in learning more, you want to book a one-on-one demo, you can head on over to jane.app.switch. And if you decide to make the switch, don't forget to use the code ICEPT1MO at signup to receive a one-month free grace period on your new Jane account. ALAN FREDENDALL Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the PT on ICE Daily Show. Happy Thursday morning. I hope your day is off to a great start. Good morning. If you're listening on YouTube, Instagram, the podcast, we're happy to have you. My name is Alan. I have the pleasure of serving as our Chief Operating Officer here at Ice and a faculty member in our Fitness, Athlete, and Practice Management Divisions here on Leadership Thursday. We're going to talk about non-compete agreements today. But first things first, Leadership Thursday also means that it is Gut Check Thursday. So, Gut Check Thursday this week will be the Ignite Workout from our friends over at Forging Youth Resilience. FIRE, we team up with them every year. They support kids learning CrossFit, using CrossFit to help themselves with mental health, and other things they have going on in their life. So this year, they are doing the Ignite workout in the month of May for Mental Health Awareness Month. And we're going to do this workout this weekend at the Ice Sampler here in Carson City, Nevada. And so the workout, what is it? It is a two-part workout. It has a conditioning piece and it has a weightlifting piece. So it starts with an 18-minute running clock for the whole workout. So start at 18-minute clock and then work your way through 21, 15, 9. Thrusters at 95 for the guys, 65 for the ladies. Lateral burpees over the bar and then ab mat sit-ups. And then in whatever time you have left in that 18-minute window, you're going to max a complex of a power clean and a hang squat clean which must be performed unbroken. So cycling that power clean back down to the hip and then moving through a hang squat clean for a max load. Now this year at The Sampler we're going to do this in teams of three where three folks each do the workout at the same time. They have a combined time and then they have a combined load on their weight lifting piece. And what we're asking folks to do at the sampler, and we're asking you all to do as well if you hit this workout, is to consider donation to FIRE in whatever amount, one cent, 50 cents, one dollar, for every second you are slower, and every pound you are less on the complex than the team that FIRE has assembled of CrossFit Games athletes. So EZ Muhammad, Noah Olsen, and Sam Dancer have teamed up to represent FIRE. And the challenge to all of us is to try our best to beat them. And so we ask you all to consider donation in the seconds you are slower, pounds you are less on your lift. And then ICE will donate $1 per second and $1 per pound to any team whether you're here at The Sampler this weekend on Sunday or whether you're doing it at home in a team of three, we will donate $1 per second that you are faster and $1 per pound that you are heavier on your complex than that team of CrossFit Games athletes. So a little challenge flag for you all. If that is your team and you are not here at The Sampler, we would love to see a full video posted somewhere, shared with us, and then we'll make a donation on behalf of your team to fire. So that is the Ignite Workout. We're super pumped about that. Today on Leadership Thursday, what are we talking about? We're talking about non-compete agreements. So most of us are somewhat familiar with these. Some of us are unfortunately very familiar with these. We may have a non-compete looming over our head that we're worried about. So my goal today is to talk about the history of non-competes, the purpose of non-competes, and then talk about some recent changes to non-compete agreements that are really in our favor on the employee side of the equation. WHY NON-COMPETES? So first things first, when and why did these begin? These have been around for a while. These are becoming more prevalent in healthcare certainly, but these are primarily designed to limit the ability of somebody to leave a job and take not only their experience, but maybe knowledge of technology or systems to a competing company. So that is why they were created. So you might say, well, that seems like a pretty good reason. But in reality, what happened is that non-competes just became so prevalent that pretty much every person at every job, no matter what they were doing at that position, ended up being asked to sign a non-compete agreement. And what we've seen and what the government has done a lot of research on over the years is, is this good or bad for workers? And is it good or bad for the American economy in general? And what they have found over the years is that it is very bad for the economy. Why? Two reasons. It suppresses wages and it increases worker dissatisfaction. So obviously if you're working at a position and you're asking for a raise and you're not getting a raise, you're asking for a bonus, you're not getting a bonus, you're asking for a promotion, you're not getting a promotion, The answer when you have a non-compete agreement has always been too bad. You can't leave anyways, right? So we have no reason to help you further your career along. And now you can imagine how that part influences worker dissatisfaction of feeling like you are stuck, feeling like you have no mobility in your career, feeling like if you leave you might end up with a lawsuit, you might end up in a really bad position both personally and professionally. And the thing to know about non-competes is they are not in effect everywhere. There are some states that have never allowed them, and there are some states over the past couple years that have begun to ban them, either across the state or for specific workers. So a good example, California and New York, a couple other states have completely banned them. And then a lot of other states, about 25 states in total, have restrictions on who they can be applied to. And they can't be applied to specific professions or people making under a certain amount of money. And the whole idea is we cannot control the ability of people to have upward mobility in their career. That's obviously bad for the individual, but it's also bad overall for the economy. People who make less money, spend less money. People who make less money, pay less taxes. So the government is very interested in seeing what happens when non-competes are in effect and when they're not in effect. Your thoughts on California notwithstanding. California is a great example of what happens when non-competes are not allowed. They have been banned in California for a very long period of time. And you can imagine an area like Silicon Valley where all of our technology is essentially created and invented would simply not exist with non-competes because people would not be able to leave and have upward mobility in their career to join a different software company or something like that if they had non-competes in effect. And because non-competes are banned in California, we see higher than usual income for workers in California. Yes, unfortunately that's offset by cost of living because California has a really nice climate and everybody wants to live there. But that is the reason why wages are higher on average. And thinking about world economies, The United States is number one. We have about 25% of all the world's economic output happening just in our country. But not too far behind is the state of California itself. So if we look at largest economies in the world, United States is number one, China is n