I can believe that they're careless and used the wrong copy of a document but I'm not sure I understand why you're signing an agreement like that on exit: you've signed it on hiring so that regardless of the outcome of your employment, you're bound to the anti-poach. The only reason I can think that they'd ask you to sign the agreement again on exit is that they wanted to bind you into something new -- what explanation did they give?
Often a company will offer severance more generous than they are contractually/legally obliged to in exchange for the leaver signing some extra restrictions beyond what was in the original employment contract.
> The only reason I can think that they'd ask you to sign the agreement again on exit is that they wanted to bind you into something new
In the Clerky boilerplate employment docs, used by many YC companies, the employment agreement contains a Termination Certificate along with a clause that says something like “upon leaving the company you agree to sign the Termination Certificate in the appendix”.
So technically, in the case of Clerky’s boilerplate docs, you agree to sign the termination form before employment even begins.
FWIW the termination certificate I’m thinking of is a very simple 1 page agreement basically just acknowledging to the company that you have returned all company IP, hardware, etc to the company and agree to continue to abide by the original employment agreement. It doesn’t really add any additional obligations.
I suppose the benefit to the company is just a reconfirmation that you are aware of the terms of the original agreement and that you’ve followed through with basic duties such as returning confidential data, hardware, etc to the company.
That said, many employers have additional severance agreements that can add lots of additional expectations such as non-disparagement clauses, but that’s typically only done in exchange for additional severance the the company isn’t legally obligated to provide you (in which case you can absolutely say you won’t sign the agreement if you want to forgo the severance payment)
Yeah, this was the situation, that I had agreed when I was hired to sign the agreement when I left. The issue was just that the summary of what I "had agreed to" when I was hired that was presented in the termination agreement wasn't actually what I had agreed to when I was hired.
I was leaving of my own accord, so no severance involved, which was why I told them I was happy to stand by the terms I'd already agreed to, including signing the termination agreement, but I wouldn't be signing a document that contained new terms.
I would happily sign a 1 page document that said, "I acknowledge that I have been reminded of my obligations under the document signed April 1, 2004 and been provided with paper copies of said agreement."
