I have been in this position and managed to get out albeit a few scratches, but my heart goes out to the Bambi eyed fashion lovers out there who just sign anything to be part of something.
In South Africa, I worked at one of the top fashion houses, I will not be mentioning names. As a young and naive, eager, bright eyed fashionista... Buying was just up my alley and so I applied to be a trainee buyer.
I went through a series of interviews, three to be exact. They wanted me and I wanted to be there.
I felt so fortunate to be given the opportunity to be selected as a trainee buyer, in my third interview, HR mentioned there was a work back agreement, I was barely listening and at that point I would have signed my life over just to get the position.I was going t be a trainee buyer at the top fashion company in South Africa, nothing could deter me. The new group of freshly hired trainees had a big surprise, we would be the first group to sign a work back agreement, as with the previously hired group of newbies; this had never been the case.
Big Mistake, always read the fine print, always be sure you know what you are signing.
Companies implement work back agreements for various reasons, in my opinion in this case, there were tons of people applying for the position, companies invest a lot of time and money with new trainees and the last thing they want is for you to take the knowledge and go somewhere else, e.g their competitors. They are investing in you and so they want their investment back; d.o.u.b.l.e.d.
Some companies do not implement this work back agreements and usually just put a prevention clause in place, that you may not work for a competitor within a certain period of time after you leaving the company; semi understandable if the time constraint is acceptable.
Work back agreements can take various shapes and forms, some say that once you become an actual buyer, you need to work back all the years of training and it can take up to 2 years to become a second level buyer, so you are not even a senior buyer at this stage. It will begin to feel like you are stuck, that you cannot leave and if you do...they will take everything you worked so hard for.
Bottom line is that the company wants their investment in you to stay put, there is usually a period of 6/7 months whereby you can freely leave in the beginning, but over and above that period you are stuck like velcro. If you choose to leave, you will need to pay back all your training costs and your accumulated salary back to the company - no matter what training they supplied (could be very little, for example, shadowing a real buyer is not necessarily training, it is shadowing that person so that you can learn from them, fully fledged buyers do not get paid extra money to take you on as a trainee). So as for the training costs, the company will probably come up with some ridiculous amount of money that needs to be paid back to them and when you ask for a breakdown as to how they came to this amount, well ...there is no breakdown. It is their way of catching you in their develish and greedy web and it is a scary web, its a huge company with a huge reputable name against little old you.
I am not even sure, if the whole work back agreement is legit, well it must be because companies need to follow legal procedures, but the fact is that it is a form of bullying you and sapping you of all you have by using intimidation and signature/contract control techniques to get you to stay.
Without going into to much detail, make sure you check the following points.
- If you are not sure that buying and planning is for you in the first place, the last thing you want is to be stuck with a company, miserable or leaving and paying them back everything you earned.
- Make sure you read the fine print and understand what you are signing from the start
- Ask questions and then ask more questions
- If you are brilliant; why not challenge them and say that you will not sign, it is a risk but if you have the ball's ...go for it
- Do not be overwhelmed by the glamour and glitz, if it sux...you are going to be stuck and miserable, chances are you are just starting out and would never be able to pay back a company because you wanted out.
- Don't let them bully you
- Speak to a lawyer and get them to look at the agreement, remember it is an agreement, if you did not receive adequate training (courses, development sessions, manuals,...) then you didn't get trained so the agreement becomes void because most work back agreements agree to train you to perform. Also, question the training you received, was it all in house? , did they fly you somewhere? did they pay for lectures and practical sessions?
- I am in full agreement that if a company spends money on you and your development and you decide to bail for greener pastures with the wealth of information imparted to you, well then you owe them.
Just don;t get starry eyed and say you will worry about it later, ask yourself the questions that matter and don't get stuck in the corporate web.
Good luck to all the trainees out there, i hope you keep your head screwed on, your eyes on the prize and steady on your stilletto's.
