Please clarify my doubts

Hi shariq07,

Employers take considerable efforts – spend time, effort, and money of course – in hiring candidate from overseas to fill up the vacant positions within their organisations.

Since a substantial amount of investment would have already been made on the selected candidate, every employer would naturally want their hires to stay with them for 2-years at least (the duration of the first employment contract).

Now if an employee, for whatever reason, wants to resign from his employment and go elsewhere before the completing of the first contract, then obviously the employer would not be too amused, nor would take to it too kindly.

Some employers might demand that the resigning employee reimburses the costs that they had incurred in bringing the employee over, and in settling them down here in Oman.

Some other employers might flat out refuse to let go of the employee by withholding their passport, even though it is illegal and could invite trouble for the employer, if complained.

There are also instances, where some employers have even gone ahead and lodged false cases of theft, or of misappropriation, against those employees who were planning to leave the country, against the employer's wishes.

A lot depends on what sort of an employer the concerned employee is working for. In case if it is a leading organisation, a multinational, a professional set-up, then the process would be well defined and formalised. Such organisations even specify every single detail to the last ‘T' in the employment contract itself. So there is no further discussion on the said topic.

But in smaller organisations, these things are never accounted for, resulting in unimaginable confusion for the hapless employee. This is where the employer gains the upper hand and makes life quite hard for the employee, by calling all the shots in their favour.

Irrespective of what the employer may or may not do, in his or her own personal interest, it is best for the employee to leave without any animosity with the employer - even if it means coughing up the required penalties, plus the spitefully added premiums.