Legality of an employment contract

[MassiveJim]

Context, my partner started a new job around 4 months ago and this is part of her contract.
She isn't thinking of leaving right now but may do in the future.
All the training undertaken is relevant only to her job and company ie. She doesn't get a qualification at the end of it, and is unable to work in her job without it
The company regularly runs "top-up" training courses every 2 years.
A friend of hers did 2 weeks of training and left before starting work and has just received a "bill" for over £2k.


She has also heard from other members that this company has pursued past employees in court for the money and won. (This bit cannot be confirmed 100% however )

 

[[FnG]magnolia]

We had this in the other thread yesterday: just because words are on the page doesn't make it reasonable or enforceable. Is this teaching or nursing?

 

[Beansprout]

A 5 year old could write a more coherent contract than this. It's pathetic.

 

[jaybee]

Is there stuff in the contract saying you have to attend the training provided as well, like it's mandatory? If there is I would never sign that.

Edit; sorry just seen it at the top saying it's required. Yeah I would not sign it.

Edit2: just seen she already has signed it and working that job. DOH. Can't be legal surely. Be interested to hear as someone I know has a similar contract.

 

[mattx4]

I think companies can claw back training costs. They should specify the costs in the contract

But that 20.2 is definitely illegal, if it says employees are charged for equipment damage

In the eyes of the law, the employer cannot deduct from the employee's paycheck to cover for losses or damage to company property caused by the employee. In fact, the Employment Rights Act 1996: Section 11 protects the employee's wages against any unlawful deductions.

Just from that small part of the contract the company looks super sketchy I wouldn't sign it and be looking for a new job asap.

With clauses like that I'm guessing they have a super high turnover rate and rather than address the issues they try to lock in employees with fees making it harder to leave

 

[Mrwong]

constructive dismissal only way out.​

Make a few complaints about getting eyed up by senor boss.

 

[D.P.]

The contract in general doesn't appear to be written by anyone with legal contract experience. A contract itself is just words on the paper and don't hold special meaning, the contract has to be coherent, reasonable and legal. E.g. if the contract said the employer had the right to murder anyone who left, wouldn't be a legal contract. Therefore, given the poor quality of the contract with the illegal section 20.2 as pointed out above there could be good grounds to defend oneself. However, you would have to involve lawyers and have a risk of additional costs if you loose.

with regards training costs, employers certainly can make this mandatory and ask for it to be paid back. The only distinction would be some basic introductory training like safety training, intro to the company, using their IT systems, basic IT security.

 

[Resident]

We had a similar clause in our contracts regarding PCV training. In order to start working for the company (and start your PCV training) you had to sign the contract.

The contract stated that you had to be with the company 2 years or pay back your PCV training costs (£2500).

One driver left and they sent him the demand letter. They received one back refusing, claiming that the agreement was made "under duress" as failure to sign the contract would result in revocation of the job offer & since refusing a job offer would have caused the applicant to lose their JSA claim (refusal to work), constituted duress as it would have left them in a financial hole.

Company backed off and then quietly removed the clause. For reference we are not not talking about a small firm, this is a multi-national group.

 

[peterwalkley]

Any unions on site ? That's something they should be equipped to deal with.

To my layman's eye, that's grossly unfair. 19.2 forces you to attend training, 19.6 forces you to hand money back if you leave within 2 years of any training. Its a license to blackmail your staff into never leaving as they'd be forced to repay some unknown amount of money. Two years is silly unless this "training" is something very career enhancing (e.g sponsoring and paying for an MBA).

If you want to go, then refusing to attend training and getting fired seems to be the way out.

 

[NickK]

Is there stuff in the contract saying you have to attend the training provided as well, like it's mandatory? If there is I would never sign that.

Edit; sorry just seen it at the top saying it's required. Yeah I would not sign it.

Edit2: just seen she already has signed it and working that job. DOH. Can't be legal surely. Be interested to hear as someone I know has a similar contract.

Accountancy and tax advisers, for example, will have clauses that state they must pass certification each time the law changes or they can’t provide advisory to customers thus become unable to perform their role thus they get fired on the spot.

 

[dowie]

All the training undertaken is relevant only to her job and company ie. She doesn't get a qualification at the end of it, and is unable to work in her job without it
The company regularly runs "top-up" training courses every 2 years.
A friend of hers did 2 weeks of training and left before starting work and has just received a "bill" for over £2k.

That sounds very fishy... so every 24 months the "training" bill decays to zero but upon finally working off any training liability then they whack on a new training course which employees will be liable for.

It's not unheard of for say (typically third party) training costs to be something you do have to pay for if you leave within X period of time but that's more relevant to say an IT guy being sent on some external course worth thousands or someone getting their part-time degree funded and then just quitting an getting a better paid job shortly after that investment.

It apparently can be allowed as a mandatory requirement but there are restrictions if it were to case pay to fall below NMW:

Deductions for training courses: Final pay when someone leaves a job - Acas

Employers can deduct money from pay for training courses if it was agreed in the contract or in writing beforehand.

www.acas.org.uk

I think companies can claw back training costs. They should specify the costs in the contract

But that 20.2 is definitely illegal, if it says employees are charged for equipment damage

I'm not sure it is definitely illegal, certainly people with experience in in the armed forces will have heard of kit insurance - you can regularly be in situations where you sign for (and are liable for) equipment worth thousands and if you lose that equipment then... well it's worth having insurance. Or course things can get damaged during normal usage.

Can You Make an Employee Pay for Damages? | DavidsonMorris

Can you make an employee pay for damages? What are an employer's rights if an employee has damaged company property?

www.davidsonmorris.com

An employer can only make an automatic deduction from wages in limited circumstances, such as where the contract of employment allows for reasonable costs to be taken to make good any loss or damage to property caused by the employee’s wilful act, carelessness or negligence. If the employer does not have this contractual right, they have to obtain the employee’s written consent to cover the costs.

 

[rumple9]

It is legal, and I wouldn't sign it. Enforceability turns on the reason for the contract terminating. I for example she left because of the employers conduct claiming constructive dismissal, then it would not be enforceable. Also if the court were to determine the clause is a restraint of trade, again it would not be enforceable. If she had to leave because of say maternity then it would be a breach of the Equality act.

So to sum up yes on the face of it employers can do this and it would be unwise to sign this contract as it may or may not be enforceable but that is determined upon an event in the future being the reason for terminating the contract

 

[Semple]

That sounds very fishy... so every 24 months the "training" bill decays to zero but upon finally working off any training liability then they whack on a new training course which employees will be liable for.

That was my first thought that the period resets every 2 years when they ask staff to do a new training course, but I can't ever see that being upheld in court as you'd essentially hold your employees to ransom for ever.

 

[MassiveJim]

To clarify, it is all in house training, either delivered by a company employed trainer in a physical classroom or online courses done from home, there is no certification/qualification other than a check sheet to say that said training has been completed. My partner spent around 3 weeks doing just training whilst she was waiting for a DBS check to come back.

She has already signed it btw, she didn't even run it past me facepalm.gif

In terms of the company and scummy/shady practices, that is 100% the case, other things have occurred (not relevant to this thread however)

 

[HangTime]

Clawback of training costs isn't unusual but it tends to be for external qualifications that aren't mandatory. Basically it is to reduce the impact people getting their employer to fund training and then using that training to land a job elsewhere. It would also typically be based on the employee resigning, not "leaving the company" i.e. leaving against the will of the company.

 

[dowie]

To clarify, it is all in house training, either delivered by a company employed trainer in a physical classroom or online courses done from home, there is no certification/qualification other than a check sheet to say that said training has been completed. My partner spent around 3 weeks doing just training whilst she was waiting for a DBS check to come back.

She has already signed it btw, she didn't even run it past me facepalm.gif

In terms of the company and scummy/shady practices, that is 100% the case, other things have occurred (not relevant to this thread however)

The only similar thing I've experienced is years ago in a temp/summer job - call centre type thing, there was a 1 or 2 week training period in classrooms and it was paid... *if* you stayed for the first month. If you quit during training you'd get nothing and if you say just worked 1 week of shifts after that training period and quit before being paid for the month then they'd only pay you for those shifts and not for the training period.... so long as you stayed for the full month then you'd get pay for the shifts + training period. Seemed fair enough as it is a waste of money for them to train up temps only to have them quit after doing the job for less than the training period.

Holding you to it for 2 years seems ridiculous though for internal training, that would perhaps be reasonable if they'd shelled out thousands to pay for an external course, part-time degree, MBA etc. but not for your basic induction/orientation to the company.

 

[BUDFORCE]

Is this a big employer? I'm guessing not.

 

[MassiveJim]

So the day has finally arrived.

My partner has officially left (well she has actually switched over to a "bank" contract), she has received a bill for £2377.88


Wondering the best course of action to take here.

1 - Ignore it
2 - agree to pay monthly and then cancel the DD (other people have apparently done this and heard no more, although this is hearsay and I have no proof that it will actually work)
3 - pay for legal advice, and then fight it (this is obviously a cost to us)

or
4 - the fact that there is clause 19.5 and 19.6 greys the lines somewhat, as it could be argued that it was all effectively induction training and that now she has completed her probationary period clause 19.5 no longer applies, and 19.6 doesn't apply as she hasn't had further training since the induction.

further to this as she is now a bank worker for them, she still requires the same training to carry out the job as and when she picks up a shift.

 

[HangTime]

19.6 doesn't apply as she hasn't had further training since the induction.

That's not how I'm reading it. I believe it's essentially saying, leave within probation period and you pay full whack. Leave within 2 years of training and a sliding scale applies. You need to find out what the "sliding scale" is, I'd expect it to be something like 100%, 75%, 50%, 25% for each 6 month block, something like that. But if she hasn't been provided the sliding scale that seems dodgy. So assuming it's between 6 and 12 months since her training then it would be 75% due (if that was the scale).

she is now a bank worker for them, she still requires the same training to carry out the job as and when she picks up a shift.

So this is why this sort of clause exists, she's basically got her employer to pay for her training earlier this year, now she's left and gone 'contracting' in a role that requires the training. They don't want to be a factory for producing bank workers, paying for all their training and then they use that training to land bank gigs, not only are they out of pocket for the training but the cost of the bank staff will exceed FTE.

 

[Jokester]

If it’s internal training and company specific I wouldn’t be paying (or technically signing that contract). It seems unreasonable that you are expected to resit the course on a regular basis so that when ever in the future you left you would always be charged.

It was (and maybe still is) a thing in my industry that if staff (graduates) were put through external courses they would be expected to repay some of it if they left within a couple of years, but at least you had something to show for it.