Do you work at a company that won't allow you to join a competitor months after you've left? I'm talking about that non-compete clause written into your contract. It probably even stops you from continuing to work with your clients after you leave. Let's see, what are the other employee contract main points. Is it a 90-day notice period? Or maybe a mandatory work-from-office situation after you've happily settled into a work-from-home/hybrid work life. A survey about employment contracts, to which we received over 50 responses. Almost 41% of the respondents said they’d like shorter notice periods; 23% of them said they want the non-compete clause to be removed; and 27% of them said they want more flexibility in terms of deciding whether to work from the office or home. And that's just it—people are looking for some form of flexibility. Maybe some want to even try and earn on the side during this economic downturn—gig work has seen some takers after all. Employers would need to consider that the pandemic irrevocably changed some rules. Even as startups in India lay off employees in the hundreds—Edtech mammoth Byju's recently laid off over 2,500 employees across its group companies—employees still want the power to choose. Negotiations no longer stop at salaries as employees ask for unrestricted leaves, flexi hours, preferred work locations, and more. Interestingly, though, it's startups that have shown some ability to transform with the needs of employees when it comes to their contracts. Human resources technology startup Springworks, for instance, has a 15-day notice period. Zomato has none—though that's tricky, too. Springworks and fintech major CRED even allow their employees to take up gig or freelance work. There are many more trying to change with the times. But the old guard is still playing catch up. And they're being held accountable. Recently, a Pune-based IT employees union filed an appeal with India's labour ministry against Infosys' non-compete clause. It's food for thought for Infosys—India's IT giant is seeing an attrition rate of nearly 28% of late, up from 11% this time last year. Infosys' non-compete restricts employees from joining rivals like TCS, Accenture, IBM, Cognizant, and Wipro for six months after leaving the company. The American companies often swap the non-compete for a non-disclosure agreement. That's one of the options Indian companies can adopt.
