If the childcare training you’ve provided to a member of staff is very costly or you have concerns that they’ll leave during the course of their learning (or shortly afterwards), then having this type of agreement in place can protect your business and help you legally claim back your costs.
However, you can’t rely on a clause in the employment contract to cover this, instead the training agreement needs to be a completely separate document.
Here are some key points to take away:
- In order to recover any training costs when your employee leaves, you need to have a written training agreement in place before your member of staff starts their training.
- You should explain to the employee what the agreement means and why the repayment is necessary, ensuring you have their consent to the agreement with their signature.
- Make sure the sum you’re asking your employee to pay back is a true reflection of the costs of training them, otherwise the agreement may be unenforceable.
- You may wish to set up a staggered system of clawing back the money, for instance if they leave within 6 months of completing their training then they must pay 100% back, if it’s within 6-9 months they pay 75% back etc.
- You may also want to include a clause in the agreement to allow you to make deductions from the employee's final salary if there are any outstanding training fees when they leave. This makes it easier for you to guarantee repayment of these costs.
- After a certain amount of time, for instance 12 months after they've finished their training, you may decide that they can leave without repaying any of the costs.
If your employee is aged 16-18 and doing an apprenticeship, the cost of this training is currently covered in full by the government. For other instances where you’ve agreed to contribute to (or cover) a member of staff’s training costs, having an agreement in place is a good way to encourage your staff to remain loyal to your business and claw back any payments you've made if they decide to leave unexpectedly.
From childcare level 2 right through to management courses, we've got it covered. Sign up your staff to training today!