ASX-listed WiseTech is back in the news again – and once again, for all the wrong reasons – after announcing in February that it shed 2000 jobs, 30% of its workforce, a part of an AI transformation.
First up, the logistics software company’s CEO allegedly received a letter threatening violence as consultations on the redundancy process finally got underway last month.
On the weekend, the AFR reported that the company was looking to insert non-compete clauses in the redundancy agreements. The employee union, Professionals Australia, wants them removed. WiseTech countered that staff being made redundant can’t get a job at four rival companies – Expedient Software, Clear.AI Systems, Yojee and Trade Window – for at least 12 months.
Having led more than $200 million in workforce integrations and more than $20m in organisational change, I have helped these decisions get made. I have seen leaders wrestle with difficult choices, employees navigate uncertainty, and organisations work hard to balance commercial reality with human impact. I do not comment on restructures from the cheap seats.
So when I see another WiseTech story about employees reportedly being made redundant, then potentially restricted from taking their skills to smaller rivals, I do not just see a questionable legal clause. I see another leadership choice in a questionable narrative that WiseTech has been willfully writing for the last few years.
Once again, WiseTech has become a clear example of what happens when AI transformation, workforce change, communication failure and leadership tone all collide at once. The company announced plans to cut around 2,000 roles globally as part of its AI pivot. Staff have reportedly sat through months of uncertainty, with some not knowing whether they were affected, while also hearing leadership talk up AI’s ability to do work faster, cheaper and with less human constraint.
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This is an ongoing story about power and the abuse of it.
Imagine being told AI can now do more of the work. You sit through weeks, maybe months, of uncertainty. You keep showing up and keep being asked to perform while wondering whether your name is on a list somewhere.
Then the communication gets messier.
You reportedly receive a message saying your role is impacted, another message follows, emails reportedly disappear from inboxes, a rushed communication lands, and you are left trying to piece together your future from fragments, while the broader leadership narrative keeps celebrating AI capacity, efficiency gains and a world where capacity is no longer constrained by people or time.
Eventually, you get the message that matters most: “Your role is going.”
Then comes the extra kick where it hurts: “You may not be able to take your skills to a competitor either.” Sorry, what!?!
How arrogant do you have to be to say, “We do not need you anymore, but please do not take your expertise somewhere it is valued.”
It’s easy to say that capacity is not constrained by people or time, but remember that neither is ethics.
Employers can protect what‘s theirs – but don’t own what‘s yours
A business has every right to protect confidential information, trade secrets, customer relationships and intellectual property. If someone walks out with sensitive source code, commercial strategy, proprietary information or customer data, that is a clear breach of the employment relationship.
But there is a difference between protecting the business and handcuffing someone’s career.
Your employer may own the IP you created for them, it may have a legitimate interest in protecting confidential information, and it may be able to limit solicitation of clients or staff in specific, reasonable ways.
What it does not own is your brain.
Your skills, judgement, craft, experience and ability to solve problems in your field do not magically become company property because you worked there. Say you are a tech expert in global logistics, your next job is probably going to involve tech, trade or logistics. That is called having a career.
A restraint of trade clause is not a magic spell. It does not mean a business can casually stop someone earning a living in the area they have spent years building expertise in because it feels uncomfortable watching them work somewhere else.
In a redundancy context, the ethical bar gets higher. You cannot tell someone their role is no longer required, then behave as though their future work is still yours to control.
Strong businesses protect what’s important
For employers, there is a cleaner path. Strengthen your contracts around IP, confidentiality and genuine commercial risk.
Be specific, proportionate and reasonable. Use non-solicitation clauses where they are genuinely needed and compensate people properly if you truly need them not to work for a period.
But stop using broad restraints as a security blanket. They are archaic and harder to enforce than many leaders think.
Strong businesses protect what is genuinely theirs and let people take what is genuinely theirs: their skills, their experience and their future.
That is the line and that is why this story is bigger than WiseTech.
Because this is not really about restraint clauses but more about the abuse of power. It is about how organisations behave when the relationship ends, whether they choose dignity or control, whether they design exits with humanity or paranoia, and whether they understand that risk management and respect are not mutually exclusive.
If the reports are accurate, WiseTech may have achieved something remarkable.
At a time when AI, workforce transformation, redundancy processes, employee mobility, ethics and leadership are all colliding, it has potentially created a near-perfect case study in what not to do.
The kind that will be dissected in business schools and ethics lectures for years. Not because the legal arguments are interesting, but because the leadership choices are.
You do not get to break up, then control their next move.
And you definitely do not get to tell people they are no longer needed, then act offended when someone else needs them.
- Deepak Singh is the founder and chief culture officer at Mission and Rhythm, helping startups get their culture right.
