Bonded Labour..!

Companies in developing countries are increasingly using Employment Bonds to preserve their bench strength and tackle attrition.

I believe it to be a step taken backwards, back to the days when people used to be enslaved by the capitalists in lieu of their inability to payoff loans.

The approach to Employment Bonds and that of bonded labour may differ but the essence remains the same. Employees are forced to stick to a company for a stipulated period of time and if they fail to do so then a sum of money is forfeited.

These clauses are enforced on the employees without taking into consideration their career prospects in the current company.

Mass recruiters have been the pioneers in enforcement of Bonds to its new joinees because of obvious reasons

· These companies pitch for new projects on the basis of their bench strength which is in a way preserved by these employment bonds.

· They spend a certain amount of money on the training of these employees which they intend to recover from the services of the employee during the tenure of the bond.

Having worked for Australia and New Zealand Banking group i can differentiate the HR policies of Multinationals and those of their home grown counterparts.

The policies of ANZ truly reflected the Australian approach to people policies where every employee is given equal importance and the policies inherently were very liberal leave aside the question of Employment Bonds . The focus was towards work life balance and not towards making your life imbalanced by work. This fostered a healthy culture among employees and in turn produced better performance from employees.

I am aware of companies like Cisco, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, Google and few others (courtesy my friends who work for them) which follow similar attitude towards their employees.

The issue of Employment Bonds and other kinds of restrictive covenants are the results of conservative capitalist thinking which would require a slow and gradual approach to do away with.