Life After Non-Competes – How Winnchester Is Helping Clients Get Ready
Over the next few years, we expect to see a meaningful shift in how Australian employers can use post-employment restraints. One of the key reforms on the horizon is a ban on non-compete clauses for employees under the high-income threshold.
At Winnchester Consulting, we’re treating this as more than a legal tweak. It goes to the heart of how our clients protect their businesses, manage talent risk and design contracts that will stand up in practice.
What’s changing?
The federal government has signalled an intention to prohibit non-compete clauses for employees earning below the high-income threshold (projected to be $183,100 in FY26). These clauses are commonly used to restrict an employee from joining a competitor or starting a competing business for a period of time after they leave.
If implemented, we expect to see:
A ban on NCCs in new contracts for employees below the threshold from around 2027.
Potential civil penalties for including them where they are not permitted.
Ongoing consultation on whether additional limits should also apply to higher-income employees (for example, on client-solicitation or no-poach provisions).
What this means for your business
Many organisations have treated non-competes as boilerplate – built into templates for almost everyone. If those clauses must be removed for a large section of your workforce, the implications are real:
Greater employee mobility, with staff more confident to move between competitors.
Increased reliance on other protections – confidentiality, IP, non-solicitation and internal controls.
Closer scrutiny of restraints for senior and specialist roles, where overly broad wording is already being challenged.
In other words: this is a prompt to be deliberate, not default. If you intend to restrict someone after they leave, you need to be clear on why, for how long, and whether it’s genuinely reasonable.
How Winnchester recommends you prepare
We’re working with clients to take a structured, low-drama approach:
Audit your current contracts
Identify all roles with non-compete provisions.
Segment employees by total remuneration to see who would sit below the high-income threshold.
Note which business units are most reliant on non-competes (e.g. sales, senior leadership, niche technical roles).
Clarify what you’re actually protecting
Instead of defaulting to a blanket restraint, ask:Are we trying to safeguard key client relationships?
Protect confidential information, pricing or strategy?
Guard against misuse of IP or trade secrets?
The answers will determine whether your priority is stronger confidentiality wording, IP clauses, non-solicitation provisions, or better internal controls.Update contract templates – once, properly
We recommend refreshing your suite of contract templates by cohort (award-covered, salaried, executives, contractors).
Remove non-competes where they are likely to be unlawful, and refine restraints for genuinely high-risk, high-income roles so they are tightly scoped and defensible.
Store the “single source of truth” templates centrally – ideally through your HRIS – so older versions don’t keep re-appearing.
Balance risk with a stronger retention strategy
If you can’t lean on non-competes in the same way, your fundamentals matter even more:Competitive, transparent remuneration.
Clear development and progression pathways.
Capable managers and a culture that people want to stay in.
Modern flexibility that aligns with your operational needs.
Reset expectations with managers and recruiters
Help hiring managers understand what is changing and why they can’t simply “add a non-compete” every time they’re nervous about a hire.
Provide simple, practical guidance on when restraints may still be appropriate and which alternative protections to rely on.
How we can help
Winnchester Consulting can:
Audit your current contracts and restraint practices.
Design a pragmatic restraint strategy by role type and risk profile.
Refresh your templates and build simple usage guidelines for managers.
If you’d like to sense-check how exposed your organisation might be under the proposed changes, we can walk you through a short contract review and prioritise where to begin.
