With companies laying off people in droves, protecting what’s LEFT of the company — namely, it’s company data and trade secrets — becomes that much more important.

For that reason, I’ll be speaking at our firm’s Breakfast Roundtable on March 19th at 8:30 a.m. in our Hartford office (sorry, no webinar just yet; it’s coming soon…)  You can find the details here and RSVP to event@pullcom.com. 

And because just talking about employment law is only one part about protecting company data, Michael Feld of Layer Eight, a technology consulting firm, will also be speaking to provide attendees with practical solutions as well.

As a sneak preview to our roundtable discussion, I’ll bring up one issue that companies sometimes leave out when conducting a reduction in force — and that is locking up data.

An experienced IT department (or just a good office manager) should be able to immediately lock out a departing employee from various electronic files and computers. Getting laptops and BlackBerrys returned immediately as well should also be an important part of any strategy.

I’ll talk more about this issue next week and post some of the highlights from our discussion.