"Bond"....in theory, and in practice.

There are two parties involved in a bond, the employer and the employee. From an employer's perspective a bond is a way to deter employees to leave the company for a specified period of time. There are two points here. The time specified and the amount to be paid. The period of the bond is decided by the company and it is generally the time in which the company can recover the cost it incurred to train the employee. The amount on the other hand is not based on the ROI. I have contrary views to most of the posts made about this issue. I rather agree with Satyajyoti's views that a bond is more a mechanism to prevent employees from leaving the organization. The basic flaw in the ROI argument is that an employee can leave at any time during the bond period, For example if there are two employees working for the same company and have signed a three year bond. One leaves in the 1st year and the other leaves after the second year. The ROI from both the employees is not the same, so how can the amount be same. The amount is just acts as a deterrent for the employees to leave the organization and go over to the competition.

Now lets look from the perspective of the employee. Prabhash has put forward a view that advance payment or bank guarantee for the employment bond is not appropriate. How can a company charge an employee for something which hasn’t occurred? How can they expect a fresher just out of college to pay the hefty amount before getting his first salary?. I went through a lot of posts related to the breaking of employment bonds and the picture I got was that breaking a bond is not a big deal for the employees. Employees quit without giving formal resignation(resignation letter can be a document for legal action). Thinking that the company will at most send you a few mails and call you a few times. Many queries have been asked and the general answer to them was that breaking a bond matters at the senior level but hardly matters the entry level. The downside was that "You will not get full and final settlement as well as relieving letter. So you should abandon the company on 1st or 2nd after getting the salary." and "You will not get the Company's part of the PF".
To the employees who were concerned about the legal implications, the tailor made answer was that the cost of the legal proceedings will be much higher than the amount to be paid and the company does not have time and resources to sue each and every defaulter. Some of the posts even quoted that "Employment bonds are only theoretically possible but practically enforcing it is impossible".

Now that the fact has been established that bond is necessary for the employer.The views bring to our mind certain questions-
Is advance payment or bank guarantee really unacceptable?
How can an Employment bond be practically enforceable?
How is the amount and the period of the bond decided?
How important is the relieving letter for an employee?

If there are so many loopholes to the procedure and people evade it on a regular basis, steps have to be taken to protect the interest of both the parties.