17/08/2026
While a process only exists in someone's head, it isn't really your company's. It came with them, and it leaves with them.
Most owners assume the employment contract covers this. It helps less than you would think: employment law and trade secret protection apply to knowledge that is written down and identifiable. What lives in a head is neither.
The uncomfortable part is that paperwork alone solves nothing here. Knowledge becomes a company asset the moment someone writes it down in a form another person can actually follow.
We wrote up the legal side in plain language, and what to do about it in practice.
While knowledge lives in an employee's head, it's theirs. It becomes the company's when you write it down. Here's the legal reality and how to systematize it.