" For Bonds "

One of the biggest disadvantage to think and ponder too much over any topic is that firstly, half of your ideas are either already used by the public, and secondly after reading the posts of your colleagues you realize the other half were never worthy enough to post, so in that sense I have already wasted a lot of time. Let me get straight to the point.

The analogy served by Ankit Singhal has forced me to stretch my thinking contours, keeping aside the perplexity of the issues involved, but the analogies which I am going to offer tend to be more inclined towards ethics as per the subjectivity rather than to be studied under the purview of a subject or a field of study like Employment Relationships, as is the case relating to Bonds itself is.

The 1st analogy is from a 1983 movie titled Avataar(Starring Rajesh Khanna and Shabani Azmi)
The movie is about a husband and wife, played by Rajesh Khanna and Shabana Azmi respectively, who had 2 sons.Both the sons were bought up, taken care of, provided good education despite all the economic hardships, hoping like any other parents that their sons will take care of them in their geezerhood. But that was not to be as both the sons after completing their education, took plum jobs , married and then moved on with their own lives. Similar story is of another movie titled Baaghban(Starring Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini), where the 4 sons were reluctant to live with their parents.

I used the analogy of Parents and a child from both the movies,just because of the simple fact that both the movies clearly exhibit how the parents were treated like God in the childhood, but later on when kids grew up 'smart' enough, the same parents became a liability for them. The fact that every child knows that whatever they are today is because of their parents only who provided them the best education and make them able to present themselves in the society, makes the whole episode all more unfortunate.

The relationship between an employer and an employee is somewhat similar. An employee who joins an organization , does not join an organization to perform and excel in his/her career, rather then he/she is joining that organization just as one rung in the ladder to move further in the corporate world. Had that not been the reason, there would have never been such hullabaloo over the employment bonds. The company which spends hundreds and thousand of rupees on the training of the employees expect some fidelity from the employees in terms of commitment to stay in the organization for a certain period of time.

Of course, the organization cannot hold anyone back form moving onto other organizations, infact most of the references which a candidate seeking employment in a newer organization offers, are from past employers only, again explicitly exhibiting the responsibility which an organization assumes in promoting the career prospects of an individual. Thus employment bonds, in my opinion do not aim to restrict the movement of the employees, rather than its just a token of commitment form the employees for their employers.

However in India, the populist bug has hit the judiciary as well it seems(despite politics), where the most number of cases are seen through he spectrum of Balanced equities approach, i.e. keeping in mind the larger interests of the society, i.e. the employees. In this context, the rights of the organizations seems to have taken a backseat which in turn have forced the organizations to resort to more stricter bonds and tries to enforce them with more force.

In my opinion, each and every case should be dealt differently. An employee may be leaving the job for pursuing his higher education, like most of my colleagues did, in this case the clauses of the bond could be relaxed, whereas in other cases like where an employee leaves an organization after spending say 6 months just for a higher pay package, in this case the clauses could of the bond could be enforced.

The freedom of mobility does not give the right to individuals/employees to play as per their own rules. You can move around your hand only as much as it does not come and slap my face. After all its professional and competitive world out there. This makes the whole episode much more complex like famous chick egg equation--which come first. Whether the employer first starts trusting the employees or the employees starts trusting the employers.

Any answers?