Paying for basic training if you leave a job

Undervalued

TrickyDicky101 wrote: »

At the end of the day the potential employee has a choice - accept the terms or find another job. I probably wouldn't take such a role with these conditions but that doesn't mean I don't understand why the company wants to protect itself.

Exactly.

At least in this instance the company are being completely "up front" and making clear what the terms are. Sadly I doubt the OP is in a strong negotiating position so it is very much a case of accept the conditions or look elsewhere.

amiehall

TrickyDicky101 wrote: »

But you're not paying for it - you're justifying the company's investment of its time and money in training you up to do your job. There is no relevance at all whether or not it is useful anywhere else - the fact is it costs the company and they want to know they will have some return on that investment through you working for them (and utilising what you've learnt) for a minimum length of time.

At the end of the day the potential employee has a choice - accept the terms or find another job. I probably wouldn't take such a role with these conditions but that doesn't mean I don't understand why the company wants to protect itself.

I'm just always very wary of a firm that would think the only way to get you to stay somewhere would be with financial penalties... I can understand why they might be suspicious of your motives for joining if they were offering highly sought after qualifications or something, but if the training is just internal stuff, why would I even apply for the job unless I wanted to work there?

50_Pence

[FONT=&quot]I understand why they have done it and I've heard of companies having repayment agreements for additional training taken. I’ve just never heard of it done for non-transferable basic training needed to do one specific job, that’s why I was asking if it is common place now.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]DKLS it’s in house training on their computer systems, and as far as I'm aware it's a mix of classroom based teaching and practice.

[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]It would definitely put me off taking this job; luckily it’s not me who has been offered it! [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]It does make me think though, could someone on benefits be forced to sign up to this job and risk being £1500 in debt, with only 14 days to pay it back, if something happened that meant they couldn't complete the training?[/FONT]

theoretica

I think there are two points - firstly the repaying of course fees, which others have answered above. But secondly, how is the cost of the training arrived at? Is this the true cost to the company, not counting the trainee's wages? It isn't unreasonable for a decent full time 2 week course, but if a lot of it is simply practice it becomes less reasonable!

PenguinOfDeath

How many employees have they had leave within the first few months for them to have to enforce this upfront?

usefulmale

TrickyDicky101 wrote: »

Why should the employer spend money training someone up if they can walk out of the door the moment training's done thereby wasting that investment?

Would you be happy to receive an invoice from the company for the wasted gas, electricity, water and wear and tear on your chair wheels? It's called 'cost of doing business'.

I can't see it being enforceable. If you left before the 'training' was completed, they could only 'invoice' you for the proportion that you did do. Also, unless the trainer was employed specifically only to train you, the trainers wages cannot be claimed for.

If they were daft enough to take you to court for it, they would have to break down that £1500 and I doubt they could do that.

Two4Tuesday

I agree with usefulmale here. The company is taking a risk on hiring and training the employees - that's just part of doing business.

If the employee leaves sooner rather than later, then that suggests to me that the employer failed in selecting the right candidate, or failed in providing a work environment that the candidate would want to stay in.

I don't agree with the company passing a substantial amount of this risk onto the employee, and never did it myself when employing people.

[Deleted User]

QUOTE=50 Pence;65308056]

[FONT=&quot]It does make me think though, could someone on benefits be forced to sign up to this job and risk being £1500 in debt, with only 14 days to pay it back, if something happened that meant they couldn't complete the training?[/FONT][/QUOTE]


You just wouldn't take the job and cite the reason why, although that still doesn't stop some people, personally £1500 is a lot to me so I'd query it esp when a months pay packet has been considerably less! perhaps I should be grateful to my past!


A care position recently used the serious wording 'civil action' on paper for £200 plus DBS charge so I queried it, they shockingly denied it saying it was used to scare monger more or less - or couldn't understand what they had written! I turned the job down on issue of trust and being miss-lead. Had plenty more since without the training agreement so it isn't the norm

Podge52

It's becoming common for employers to to transfer their risk onto the employee. Zero hour contracts is another example.

Takeaway_Addict

Two4Tuesday wrote: »

I agree with usefulmale here. The company is taking a risk on hiring and training the employees - that's just part of doing business.

If the employee leaves sooner rather than later, then that suggests to me that the employer failed in selecting the right candidate, or failed in providing a work environment that the candidate would want to stay in.

I don't agree with the company passing a substantial amount of this risk onto the employee, and never did it myself when employing people.

I don't do it myself but I can see why a company does it. It should be detailed costs though and it should be if the employee resigns IMO.