Pakde rehna chodna nahi

Well, the title of the post is the tagline of Fevicol, which has come up with some of the most appreciated creative commercials in recent times. On the other hand, the topic of discussion - employment bonds - is something which is not well appreciated.

I would like to share the experiences of my friend and first cousin.

After completing his graduation in 2006, my cousin had joined a multinational firm based in Bangalore. He had to sign a one year employment bond which stated that he would have to pay 75,000 if he resigned from the company during the first year of employment.

During the first year, after the initial training, he was assigned to a critical project. His performance was well appreciated by the client as well as the project manager. He was a star performer in the organization. Meanwhile, he had also started preparing for entrance examinations for MBA. He had kept his project lead and project manager informed about the same.

The results of the GD/PI were out around May 2007 and he got through IIMC. He immediately put down his papers so that he would be able to serve his notice period before the academic calendar started at the college. However the issue was that he would not be able to serve a complete one year of service since the college was beginning prior to the date of completion of one year of service. This required him to pay the full amount of 75,000 to the organization. All efforts to convince the management to reduce/forego the bond amount went in vain.

One of my friends who had joined a multinational firm in June 2007 had a clause in the employment contract which stated that he had to reimburse the organization for the training expenses. This amount of reimbursement would gradually decrease as the number of days from the training increased. i.e., if he left within the first 3 months since the training, he would have to pay 100% of the training amount. If he left within 3-6 months then 75%, within 6-9 months 50% and 25% within 9-12 months.

I personally believe that company's should give some relaxations to employees who quit jobs for education purposes. I do understand the fact that employer's invest time, money and resources into employees when they recruit them. But certain relaxations like amortizing the training amount can be considered especially in the case of freshers who quit to pursue higher education. Based on my personal experience in the IT industry, I have seen quite a few cases where freshers had to pay hefty sums where they could not complete the stipulated employment duration as mentioned in the bond. This is bound to happen since many of the companies give joining dates to employees which fall in June-end/July while post graduation colleges start their academic calendar in May-end/early-June.

Also, I believe that bonds send negative signals to the prospective employees. If an employee had to choose between 2 firms - one which had a bond and one which hadn't - which offered similar job profiles and compensation, an employee may easily be inclined to choose the company without the bond. In today's times, importance of freedom at the workplace is increasing. Employees no longer want to be bonded.