Bad practice in HR - employees must hand over all their educational certificates

Dear saswatabanerjee
Basically i was in Oil and Gas company. we were providing training on ship for extraction of oil and all.

Hi,

Mostly all state that training fresher is a cost to the company so that is the reason they are made to sign bond’s. It is just a means to create a psychological fear among them. Mainly because these bonds can’t be legally enforced. But there are many companies who even succeed to shell out money from that employee’s who leave the company before the completion of the bond although it is legally not right.

I would like to bring to your notice that Cognizant, one of the few companies that do not rely on bonds to forcefully retain talent. You will be surprised to know that the attrition is among the lowest in the industry, hence it proves that bonds aren't the only way to retain people. People don’t mind working for big companies who pay a small amount of money during the training period, or there are other’s who don’t pay at all, specially as most of the companies where effected by recession. Still they succeeded to retain good talented people.

If this companies can do so then why not other’s . No human like to be tied in bond, as this will make them feel suffocating, and they will just wait to leave the firm at the very first opportunity,and join some other organization who don’t have the policy of Bond.

But in exceptional cases where employees are handling confidential matter bonds be made applicable.



Regards

Anita

Anita,
The problem goes beyond bonds
The problem is employers keeping original certificates so that the employee can not leave (or even protest). Like the companies in gulf who exploit and harass workers because they have kept their passport : you can't leave without that.
Even in earlier cases where the employee is being trained in oil drilling, keeping the training certificate till they complete etc is ok, keeping original 10th certificates, etc makes no sense to me at least

saswatabanerjee ,
Companies in the gulf pay attractive salaries and in most cases they will allow anyone to go and will release the passport. I havent heard a story about threatening people to stay saying that passport is under the company's custody; perhaps there may be a few cases since it's possible to happen. But in my experience in the gulf countries, 99% of employees are paid their rights on time.
The case in India is different; employer holds the original docs and force the employee to stay telling them we won't return the doc.

Absolutely !
Most of the employers will be fair
But may be your luck is to have an unfair employer.
There was a case reported in cite.hr 2 weeks back where a company from Singapore terminated someone without justification, notice pay and refused to even give full and final settlement. I am sure this is not what the company wanted, but someone decided to play smart (when they got a warning of legal action,they promptly paid). In india most managers think they are god and if they have a leverage like this, they misuse it.
I have cases where someone in Wipro HR was harassing an employee unnecessarily due to some ego issue. The matter was quickly resolved by escalating to one of the VP. But few company have that kind of system to even provide escalation and grievance redressal. Further, few employees will have the guts to stand up to the managers when threatened with holding back of certificates

Hi Saswatabanerjee,
I do agree, but what can we say when people in our own country exploiting the worker's and this is some other country. Many of the people are so desperate, to go to Gulf to make money that they migrate illegally and then are stuck there with no proper documents. There is a limit for our Government to intervene, so it is advisable to go through proper channels. Even if a person goes through legal channels and face problem then he can approach the concerned authority. The link below throw light on such cases.
Official: Labour ministry contract supersedes all other documents | GulfNews.com
Companies warned over cheating on workers' payouts - The National
Regards
Anita