Confidentiality Agreement

If you work in the business world, you are bound to run across at least one confidentiality agreement in your career. The longer you work in that field the more often you will see them. They are important for a lot of reasons, and they are legally binding to all who sign them. If these did not exist there would be a lot of problems with company secrets, innovations, and clients. If you can’t keep things quiet, you can run into huge problems.

I have only signed on confidentiality agreement in my life, but I only worked in the business sector for a few years. I am surprised it was the only one I signed. I did have one at another job, though it was never put down on paper. It was more of a confidentiality agreement that was understood as a part of my hiring. Had I not agreed to keep things to myself, they would not have hired me. This job was when I worked for a cleaning service while in college. I couldn’t talk about the things I saw in people’s homes, but it was mostly to cover a few of the famous clients they had rather than the others.

The confidentiality agreement I had to sign was when I was a receptionist for an architectural firm. One of their big clients was AT&T and I could not disclose any information I may have seen on any documents that went through my hands. Fair enough. Though I don’t think I ever saw anything sensitive, I was bound by what I signed to remain quiet. If someone called and wanted to know who the AT&T contact was, I couldn’t even say that. I had to and redirect the caller to the job supervisor. The confidentiality agreement was meant to protect not only my company but AT&T as well. It wasn’t even as if there were any big secrets, it was just standard operating procedure.

If you have a business, you should think about a blanket confidentiality agreement for your employees, and you should always agree to one if a client says they want one. Most employees are honest and wouldn’t want to say anything that would hurt a client, but mistakes can happen. Sometimes people say something without thinking about it. If they have signed a confidentiality agreement, a warning bell might sound in their mind before they slip. Though it won’t always deter loose lips, it may indeed help some to keep quiet.