Clauses on the reimbursement of training costs are usually included in employment contracts to allow an employee/employee, if he leaves within a certain period, to reimburse the training costs or part of them that the employer has invested. On July 9, President Joe Biden signed an executive order calling on the Federal Trade Commission to ban or restrict non-compete clauses for workers that prevent workers from accepting jobs from competitors. While non-compete clauses have always only been used for employees or others with access to proprietary information, these non-compete clauses were criticized when employers began asking low-wage workers to sign these agreements as well, even if those workers did not have access to valuable trade secrets. In a statement on the executive order, the White House wrote: “Thousands of millions of Americans — including those who work in construction and retail — are required to sign non-compete agreements as a condition of getting a job, making it difficult for them to switch to higher-paying options. it may then not be enforceable. But if that employee stayed two years after completing the course and took advantage of that training every day, then £2,000 is not a reasonable estimate of how much money the company really lost. In that case, it wouldn`t make sense to use a training agreement to try to get the entire £2,000 back – and most likely not to pass legally. Depending on the terms of the employee contract or a relevant modern award, you may be able to reduce the amount of “debt” (i.e., .B. training fees), which must be paid from funds otherwise owed to the employee at the end of the employment relationship.
However, beyond an explicit period of time that allows you to do so, you cannot legally do so without the employee`s consent. However, if the training contract is properly drafted, it can reasonably be expected that the employer will receive a certain proportion of the £2,000 return. Matthew Johnson, a researcher at Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy, found that in states where non-compete obligations were common, workers were paid about 5 percent less overall, allegedly because they were less able to leave when another company offered them a higher salary. Although nothing prevents you from claiming reimbursement, in the absence of a contractual clause or a provision of a relevant modern award or company agreement stipulating that an employee must reimburse the cost of a training course if he resigns within a certain number of months of enrolling in the course, the employee has no legal obligation to make the refund. A common frustration we hear is when an employer pays a large sum of money to send an employee to training, only to have them resign soon after. Here too, it is first and foremost important to find the right wording of the training agreement. The training agreement template we provided above will do the job in most cases, but sometimes you`ll need more specialized support. If you need help creating a training contract, contact us to learn more about our recruitment consulting firm. If the employee`s employment contract or a relevant modern assignment or company agreement stipulates that the cost of education and related expenses (or their percentage) will be deducted from the final funds, if the employee terminates within a certain period of time after enrolling in training and/or training, you can withhold the amount of “debts” (i.e. training costs), to be paid from funds otherwise due to the employee at the end of the employment relationship. If the cost of the course is relatively low, the training agreement could come from the employee`s final salary.
If it`s more expensive, employers could introduce a more structured payment plan. The calendar could be a sliding scale, for example. B, the training agreement could stipulate: If an employer decides to include a clause on the reimbursement of training costs, it should also not apply the clause in a discriminatory manner. For example, an employer cannot treat an employee less favourably for reasons of pregnancy or maternity by suspending the remaining time under a training reimbursement clause for the period during which the worker is on maternity leave and does not consider this to be active service. .