BONDED. AT WILL.

As pointed out earlier, companies have many different reasons to draft these employment contracts.

• To lower the attrition rate.
• To recover the amount they invested in the training.
• To not to lose the knowledge workers.

But let’s look at this from the employee’s point of view. Employment bonds usually cover the first 1 to 2 years of one’s service period. For a person to leave the job during this period, the reasons are usually to go for higher studies or for better job opportunities. So if they are ready to pay the amount to release themselves of the bond, that means they consider their other options to be much more lucrative.But do they really get the worth of the bond amount they are paying? Do they actually make use of the knowledge and skill they develop during the training?

Let’s take an example of a software engineer. During his training he developed expertise in some assembly language. Now he gets through an MBA entrance exam,leaves the employer and joins a management course. I don’t think his proficiency in the language he learnt is going to be of much use here. But of course his involvement with live projects (if any) during his tenure with the company will help him in applying his experience in his new field. But does that give him value for his money? In most cases the answer is no. One or two years of work is too less time to gain some substantial quantity of understanding of the real business scenario.

As we can see, employment comes as an entire package; full of bonds, contracts, horrifying repercussions if contracts are not followed religiously till the last word etc. And you can’t even complain because it’s employment at will after all.