Sanjeev Jha (DIRECTOR) 18 February 2014

How to ensure employees don’t breach contract terms

I am working as a HR in a small IT Company located in Noida. As the company is small, retention of talent is always a tough job.

Hence, we have made an agreement in our letter head that if a candidate joins our company then they have serve a minimum of 6 months for Junior and middle level resources and its 1 year for Senior level resources.

Though this worked well till now but there is a case where candidate is not willing to serve the period of 1 year and has resigned recently. Now I would like to know whether this agreement which has been accepted by the candidate with this clause on the letter head is enforceable at law and can we legally make this candidate pay us for the damages he has caused because of leaving the company as this was mentioned in that clause that if he breaches this agreement then he will be liable to pay for the damages to our company which might occur because of this candidate leaving the company. He was a very senior resource and we gave her lots of knowledge transfer and she was managing our projects quite nicely but this will affect our company’s revenues immediately. There has to be certain way where such candidates should be punished or penalised for whom first of all we wait for many months to join (as they had 2 months notice period with their last employers) and in the end they just take offers from other companies and just say sorry and leave our company in the middle and infact they learned so much in our company.

I would like to know any method through which this can be enforced and make sure that either we should be compensated or such candidates should not leave and our hardwork on training such candidates should not go waste.

Thanks

Sanjeev Jha

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1 Replies

Kumar Doab (FIN) 20 February 2014

Majority of the employers nowadays want matters to be handled by HR even if it has legal points.

In today’s’ world the news spreads on the wings of internet, SMS, What app, phone calls……………...and if you step on the toes of the candidates it shall fetch you bad publicity.

Few things are easier said than one.

There are many threads on similar queries at LCI. The experts have opined that it shall be futile to peruse such matters.

No employee can be forced to remain in employment.

The days of BONDED Labor are gone.

If you have not incurred any expense on providing Training that shall add to qualification or some extra ordinary skills then there is no point in asking to serve for…………………months.

Your contentions do not have merits and may not pass the test of law. The litigation may boomerang on you. A properly informed employee supported by a competent lawyer would know how to inflict damages.

The industry captains running their ventures are not wary of attrition.

They let an employee go with smile.

Why because they have succession plans ready with them.

The bosses know how to fill for the outgoing employee.

You may find the attachments relevant and useful.

Attached File : 750705770 417759075 validity of employment bonds.pdf, 750705770 background paper.pdf downloaded: 131 times