Bonded without a Bond

‘Bond’ is one of the major concerns that people have while accepting any job offer. Sometimes the presence or even the absence of a bond majorly influences the candidate’s choice. Employment bonds that require long term commitment (3-4 years) are not very pleasant and in many cases outweigh the benefits of any job profile.

I would like to take this blog as an opportunity to share my personal experience. Post the recruitment process of IBM at our engineering college campus, in response to one of the queries related to employment bonds, an IBM executive said “We believe in only one bond; the common bond that all the IBMers share”. This statement acted as a confident booster, and I was clear in my mind about joining the organization after the completion of my graduation.

Bond does not necessarily foster loyalty towards the organization; it is the organization’s culture that plays a more important role. In fact, a stringent bond may make the job offer less desirable. Having said this, I would also like to state that I don’t disagree with the concept of employment bonds altogether. Many industries, especially IT industry, spend so much in training their employees. They will be at a great loss if they are not able to get the returns from the employees who leave the company soon after they join.

The point I am trying to make here is that companies should have a bond, if at all they have, which is not very undesirable. In order to achieve that, companies should try to minimize their training costs. Many companies outsource their training to various institutions. Having an in-house training department will help them reduce costs. Assuring some benefits to the employees on the completion of one year or may be two years with any organization will be a good incentive for the employees to not leave the organization. Finally, bond should not be exercised when the employee resigns for some specific reasons like higher education.

In a nutshell, the presence of the employment bond should not outweigh the lucrativeness of a job offer. Employees seek freedom whereas the company seeks to minimize losses. An employment bond should serve both these purposes.