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Comment by lesuorac | Hacker News Reader

Definitely feel that if the training is required for the job it's on the employeer to freely provide it.

If you want a forklift driver and you hire somebody that doesn't know how to then you're on the hook to train them. If you're worried they'll just turn around and quit either don't hire somebody without the training. If said forklift driver wants to go back to college and say learn electrical engineering I think the employeer could add stipulations on that.

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Charging them for training you didn't actually provide is a bit ridiculous. Too bad the case only got dismissed and nothing punitive.

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What is even worse is if the company has a requirement for 40 hours of training annually, and they provide it in-house (using bulk content CBTs) that don't really give you any skills. Then stipulate a "training fee payback" if you leave 2 years after a specific training. So you are constantly on the hook for paying back a training session seeing as they require a refresher every year.

that cannot be legal??

It's a variation on giving part of your salary in rolling bonuses (so that no matter when you leave you lose some part of the bonus) - but it should be required to be backloaded instead of front loaded in the training case (i.e, at the end of the year they give you a bonus equivalent to the training cost (and a commensurately lower salary during the year) - mainly because people are just really bad at saving for known "rainy day issues".

It should also be something highly subject to review by the governmental legal board.

> but it should be required to be backloaded instead of front loaded in the training case (i.e, at the end of the year they give you a bonus equivalent to the training cost (and a commensurately lower salary during the year)

That would be quite unfair to the worker who misses out on opportunity throughout the year for not having access to the money. The business is actually incentivized to structure it this way since they can realize the opportunity themselves, but in practice workers would run away as fast as possible if a business tried this, more than negating the potential upside.

> mainly because people are just really bad at saving for known "rainy day issues".

One can always negotiate this if they are willing to trade opportunity for less risk in managing their personal finances. A business is unlikely to say no as it is to its benefit. It wouldn't be a sensible default for either party, however.

Why even bother calling it a bonus?

It sounds like its pretty close to what the company in the article was doing.

It sounds a lot like debt bondage which is illegal pretty much everywhere.

You need to look at this from a game theory perspective since there are more than two parties involved. If company A pays for forklift training but can’t pay as high salaries as a result, but company B does not offer training and offers the higher salary, what are people going to do? Go get trained at company A and immediately jump to company B. So if you’re company A what are you supposed to do that’s actually business-feasible and not a loss-creating fantasy?

This only holds if training such as huge expense, that the one time cost to train is such that A can never improve salaries. If B is paying so much more than A, there has to be more than the training differentiating them. If that's all there is, then A can say "You're Salary is X during training because training costs Y, once training is done your salary is X + Y". Then the employee wins by getting paid during training, and the employer wins by retaining the employee. You're suggesting that B's salary Z is > X + Y, which could be possible due to the training infrastructure setup to train to a degree, but it's not like salary is the only lever that can be pulled.

What seems more to be happening is that A is trying to say "Your salary is X during and after training" and then after training is done pocketing Y.

> quit either don't hire somebody without the training.

What is better for employees - to have the option to get training and have to stay at the company one year, or to not have the option at all?

It would be best for employees if the training was suppled at employer cost and working conditions were such that they didn't need to quit.

There was a similar story linked a few weeks ago. My comment then still applies. If the value of the training accrues primarily to the employer then the employer should be footing the cost with no strings attached.

A common example is paying for a Masters degree or an industry certification. The value accrues primarily to the employee (or at least, the value is shared). The training is transferable. It's standardized. Etc. Requiring a pay-back period is reasonable here.

The counter-example are training courses as described in the article. The employee was already certified/licensed in the field. The training offered no value to the employee. The employer should be paying for it (but isn't, because this is just an end-run around debt peonage laws).

> What is better for employees - to have the option to get training and have to stay at the company one year, or to not have the option at all?

What is better for employers, provide free training to cheaper employees, or choosing more expensive employees from a smaller pool of trained people?

It surely depends on the market!

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