Is the bond effective enough??

Bonds are one way to restrict the mobility of employees from one organization to another organization. But how effective it is in restricting employees movement is different question altogether. Because it is usually seen that employees pay the whole bond amount and move to another desired organization. As given in the original posting the bond amount is generally the training expenses incurred by the company, so it is obvious that the company is trying to ensure that employees spent particular time of their career with the organization in return of the resources, time and effort spent by the organization on the employee.

But is this explicit cost covering all the implicit expenses born by the company. It is a question to be asked. Because employees develop a lot of skills, on hand experience while working with the organization and is this cost covering that. And is this bond effective enough to do that. Moreover the organizations can ensure some amount of working time in return of this bond. But what about the commitment of the employees. Can the bond really ensure that? Because it is seen that some employees wait for the bond to expire to move ahead in the career. So there is lot of dynamics involved in the employment relationship and it is really a challenge on part of the organization to incorporate all this in few pages of the bond.

And it is against the very principle of freedom of mobility in a free market place economy as ensured by Indian jurisdiction as discussed in various sessions of our ER course. So no bond can really help the organization in retaining its employees. May be a healthy working environment, a prospective career plan, and other facilities like adequate salary, remunerations help in doing so.

And coming to the employees can they really do something about the bond. As seen in the various features of the bond it is generally for the entry level employees like the graduate engineer trainees and management trainees who can do nothing about the bond in starting of their career. It is just like standard non-negotiable company document which is to be signed and the employees can do the least to avoid that. So bargaining power of the employees is also an issue. May be because a more experienced and qualified person can command such a power in avoiding such a bond.