It is not unsual for companies to request prospective employees to sign Non-Disclosure agreements as a condition of their employment. However, we are finding more and more companies demanding that employees sign a new non-disclosure agreement or countersign their initial agreement in order to get their severence package.
In some instances, companies will try to intimidate potential whistleblowers or dsgruntled employees from initiating legal actions or causing reputational damage to the organization.
A story in Business highlights the practice.
"A month ago, well-known programmer Coraline Ada Ehmke was fired from her job at GitHub.
When it happened, she knew she was going to want to publicly speak out about her frustrating time at the company, so she did something that people rarely do: she turned down the company's severance package. To get the money, she would have had to sign a non-disparagement non-disclosure agreement, she told Business Insider. "
Are you asking yourself, Am I Next?