3 ms·

Some companies do it for expensive training that COULD otherwise be purchased by the employee but they choose to go this route instead. medical field, pilots a

• em-bee 4y ago
  ok, the pilot example mentioned elsewhere is a good one i think, but i still don't think it is fair to just put the employee in debt, and i think a ban on the practice could help to resolve the problem in other ways. for example, if pilot training costs $100,000, and a pilot is expected to stay for 5 years, then essentially each year pays off $20,000. if a pilot quits before the training is paid off, then how about an industry agreement that the new employer continues the payment? so basically, if an airline doesn't want to pay for the training, they can only hire pilots that have the training already paid off. if they want to hire someone fresher, they will simply have to take that into account. it's almost like paying for insurance. the only difference is that this only has to be paid until the full cost is paid off. and if the pilot doesn't find a new job or changes industries, then that's just a risk the employer has to take. in germany the practice appears to be that the cost for the training is deducted from you salary like you pay back a loan. i see no problem there to transfer that loan to a new job, because that's simply what it is. you just continue paying. if an employer decided to gift that loan to you they can do the same, while you work there the employer pays back the loan without deducting it from your salary. if you switch jobs, the new employer can continue paying the loan, or not. but in either case you know from the beginning that there is a loan to be paid, and the payback terms are reasonable.
  • hklgny 4y ago
    You may be right - but does not seem like you were just asking out of genuine interest :) You're making your own value judgements in your response which is fine. It just means you may not opt for it if you were in that situation. If both parties are qualified to evaluate the offer and make a decision to move forward, then I don't see what's wrong with it. Cases like I mentioned are closer to a private loan, which in America is often the only other way you could get the education you're looking for. In those cases, it can often make sense to move forward with an employer paid option instead. The article, however, was about much more predatory ways of manipulating employees into staying to pay back poor on-job training closer related to typical employee onboarding than industry-wide training. I think we can all agree that's awful.
    • em-bee 4y ago
      does not seem like you were just asking out of genuine interest i wonder how you could make that conclusion (just curious, no offense taken), but i can ensure you, i am only talking out of interest because this issue is totally new to me, so i have no preconception how this should be handled and making my own value judgement is the only thing i can go on until i learn more about this. i agree with you, there is absolutely no problem for an employer to pay for education that i want and would otherwise have to pay for myself anyways, and to limit that with certain conditions. i think any law against pay-back clauses should be able to limit the application of the law appropriately. what i was trying to point out was that even if the law went to far and prevent even situations where having employees pay back for education is appropriate, workarounds can be found to still make paying for that education possible. so while the original comment seems to suggests that such a law would be a bad idea, i am trying to explore if things can be made to work, even if such a law is in place. the comparable situation in germany appears to be that mandatory training should be paid by the employer unconditionally, unless (grossly simplified) the training provides a clear advantage to find a new job. for training that is more like onboarding this would rather not be the case, and so a pay-back clause would be invalid.