Is it ethical/legal to use work methodologies learned in previous employment to new employment?

timewerx

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I'm just wondering.

For example, you learned superior programming style, useful lines of scripts of codes, or writing style, or made your own templates, design techniques, etc.....

...While employed in a previous company and now you're employed in a new company....

Can you use/re-use those superior techniques/tools you acquired in a previous employment?? What if those superior techniques/tools originated and was unique to that company?

I heard somewhere such practice in unethical but I think it's probably the reason why another company would prefer hiring candidates from highly successful companies (perhaps to learn from you what makes those companies very competitive, their superior work methodologies)

So if you're completely being ethical about it, you'd forget the good things you learned from previous employment and start building new work practices from scratch.

I'm facing such dilemma and needing advice. It concerns my work in automating Excel spreadsheets and now I'm doing the same job as freelance worker. I'm wondering if I can use the invaluable but unique skills and templates I learned over the years from different companies to my own clients in the future?
 

Paul of Eugene OR

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I'm just wondering.

For example, you learned superior programming style, useful lines of scripts of codes, or writing style, or made your own templates, design techniques, etc.....

...While employed in a previous company and now you're employed in a new company....

Can you use/re-use those superior techniques/tools you acquired in a previous employment?? What if those superior techniques/tools originated and was unique to that company?

I heard somewhere such practice in unethical but I think it's probably the reason why another company would prefer hiring candidates from highly successful companies (perhaps to learn from you what makes those companies very competitive, their superior work methodologies)

So if you're completely being ethical about it, you'd forget the good things you learned from previous employment and start building new work practices from scratch.

I'm facing such dilemma and needing advice. It concerns my work in automating Excel spreadsheets and now I'm doing the same job as freelance worker. I'm wondering if I can use the invaluable but unique skills and templates I learned over the years from different companies to my own clients in the future?

If you prepared an automatic macro that became the part of the copyrighted software of the former company, perhaps that shouldn't be used. If you simply realized how useful it is to resort and delete stuff to isolate a spreadsheet contents . . . go right ahead. Simply using, intelligently, the commands built into the program shouldn't be a problem.

If the companies don't have copies of your templates and never realized what you were using when you used it for them. . . go right ahead and use them in your current work. If those templates have become part of the original company's common knowledge among its employees . . . its probably their property because created while you were on their payroll.
 
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timewerx

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If you prepared an automatic macro that became the part of the copyrighted software of the former company, perhaps that shouldn't be used. If you simply realized how useful it is to resort and delete stuff to isolate a spreadsheet contents . . . go right ahead. Simply using, intelligently, the commands built into the program shouldn't be a problem.

If the companies don't have copies of your templates and never realized what you were using when you used it for them. . . go right ahead and use them in your current work. If those templates have become part of the original company's common knowledge among its employees . . .

Thank you that was helpful!

Yes, it wasn't copyrighted. All of the work I've done in relation to the template in question is for internal uses only.

The work I did for another company before that used a copyrighted report. I never used that template ever since my contract ended.


its probably their property because created while you were on their payroll.

By this definition alone then it is their property because first and foremost, I developed it under company time and their resources during working hours. However, I did it under my own personal initiative. The management wasn't even aware of its existence.

If were to make another template from scratch, it would have looked almost the same (save for the formatting). I would have obviously done what works so well before.
 
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timewerx

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A lot depends on whether what you brought with you is proprietory or not.

I'm not sure. It's safe to assume, the company did not use the template after my contract ended.

It was the last template I made under my personal initiative and finished it shortly before my contract ended. It wasn't known to management and it's largely untested.

After sitting unused for almost a year, I tested it by making a made-up report with artificially generated data. It worked flawlessly and saw its huge potential for future use.
 
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