BOND: employer vs employee!!

The first thing which we studied in employment relationship was “Employment at will” – the principle which is used to describe the smooth relationship between the employees and the employer. Under this “Employment at will”, employer is free to hire and fire any employee at any time. It also allows the employee to decide whether he wants to continue with the same job or want to leave. It allows them to switch jobs and leave any job at any time. But as time progressed, the term “contract” and “bond” evolved out which converted “employment at will” into a plain deal. As stated by the various bonds, they strike a deal between the employer and employee where employer wants to get the return on the investment (the investment employer made, by training the employee).

Now days, employer just want the employee to stick to their company. There are various reasons. The employing company spends lots of money during the training period, also while working, the employee is given access to many confidential data. So the employer does not want any of it employee to leave as soon as it finishes its training. Also it will again require lots of investment to hire and train new employees, so it’s best to retain the employees. “Employment at will” necessarily does not agree with what companies want and thus to retain the employees it’s necessary to introduce the term “Bond”. Bond is basically the agreement between the employee and the employer which forces the employee to stay in the company and also make sure that if the employee leaves (after training) then he does that by paying some penalty.

Going through the employer’s point of view, I feel it’s necessary to have a contract/deal/bond with the employees so that the company does not have to face the situation of employee shortage (because of employees quitting job as soon as they finish the training). It sounds completely logical as the company should get some returns in return for all the resources it spent in the training of the employees. But when going through the employee point of view, it’s very bad on them. Many employee who are not happy with the company’s policy, can not leave the company just because they can not afford to pay the money as stated in the bond. Even if they wish to go for higher education, they can not leave so easily (if serving under the mentioned bond period). Now a day every company comes with a bond, with different terms and conditions. But how ethical is it to keep your employees in your company against their will?? By signing the bond, the employees enter a deal which clearly is in favour of the employer. The bond indirectly states that it gives right to the employer to fire any of the employees at any time, but under the bond period if the employee leaves, it will make the employee pay for it. Related to what I said, I got reminded of a statement, which was said by many of my friends “love your job, but never love your company, because you may never know, when the company stops loving you!!” and no wonder, after going through the terms and conditions of the bonds, it looks quite logical.