The biggest area in my industry that I’ve seen it used is with sales managers. Not the regional sales managers, but the national sales manager for the company. The NC is that they can’t call on customers over a certain size for a certain period of time.
Like I said, I’ve never used it (mainly because I haven’t had to). But, I really don’t have a problem with something like that. Hey, the sales manager can still work in the industry, just certain customers are off limits to actively call on. Also, if the customer calls the other company and wants to buy, that’s fine.
This also points politely a main reason why I don’t have a problem with this change, they’ve always been almost impossible to enforce. You have to have some pretty damning evidence.
I did hire a VP of production that had an NC with his previous company but, it was just that he couldn’t work with a certain raw material.