If you have ever ventured out to research what are the terms and conditions, which secure the rights of your workers you send out through postings to temporarily perform a service in an EU Member State, chances are high, that you’ve spent a few hours browsing through the web, after which you were thinking you now know what to consider and what to do, only to realise you were one step from a disaster. That one step is enough to risk becoming to be the subject of the Enforcement Directive (ED) for an error you’ve overlooked, so back you go into researching how to comply with both ED and the Posting of Workers Directive (PWD).
The challenge of information accuracy
Alas, figuring out the lawfully correct terms and conditions for a posting can become a significant challenge, depending on the country you’re looking into. If it wasn’t, there wouldn’t be consulting firms, outsourcing firms, or software solutions made in he first place. Of course, everyone can just search for a practical guide or two about the applicable legislation within Europe, however, not everything you quickly find will be up-to-date.
If you know what to look for, you can also try browsing among their listed files and articles of the respective authorities, or reaching out to them for aid, if possible. Keep in mind, however, that those publications and various information can also be outdated, as changes in the Posting of Workers Directive were accepted earlier this year, and are in effect since the end of July, so what you may be looking up at the moment can be incorrect too.
Common terms and common agreement
Previously, we only briefly mentioned the terms and conditions in relation to ensuring compliance with both PWD and ED. Although remuneration is often the key topic of discussion, it is not the only crucial factor to consider. Generally, to incorporate the basic rights of its workers, an employer needs to address multiple aspects – wage, working hours and rest, annual leave and holidays, health and safety, equality etc., to name a few. In regards to the wage aspect, an employer needs to know the base pay of its worker and any payment date details. The working hours and rest subject refers to the minimum, normal, and maximum work hours and overtime during the work days, as well as any details of the breaks, included in those days, as well as details about the daily and weekly rest.
Unlike the former two, annual leave and holiday is fairly self-explanatory – how many paid days of annual leave and the specific holidays, during which no work is performed. Health and safety are similar as well, referring to the specific details regarding the relevant regulations, which ensure the safety and hygiene at the workplace. The last aspect of equality concerns itself with the subject of equal treatment of men and women, as well as further key points, protecting the workers from discrimination and ill treatment.
Strangely enough, even though the EU has many universal laws, which are the same in each country, when it comes to posting, each Member State seems to have its own view of these topics. This is what makes it hard for not just small service providers, but large organisations as well, which operate on multiple foreign markets. Once all the terms are identified, it’s time to put them down on paper.
To ensure compliance with both posting-related directives, a “transparent” document needs to be issued by the employer, which contains all the filled-in details of the agreed terms and conditions of both the worker and employer, according to the service, which the worker is expected to provide once posted. This is another tedious step of the management process of postings, where you need to list every detail – who is being posted, on behalf of which organisation, for the purpose of performing what service, the tasks this service includes, the Host company in the Member State, the terms and conditions, as well as any other aspect, unique to that country’s document requirements.
To make matters worse, like the terms and conditions, the posting documents and notifications, although rarely, also seem to differ slightly, when compiling. This just surrounds the challenge of figuring out the proper terms and conditions with another layer of complexity.
An in-house answer to the challenge
All organisations want to have control over the processes, which can influence its finances. For this reason, centralised software solutions are developed and offered as a service. WorkisrOund is no different, providing a quick and easy way through various terms and conditions of the major Member States and their respective business sector, where the majority of postings occur.
Since the assignment letter, where these terms need to be clarified is also important, another key point of WorkisrOund is the document generation service, which uses a robust template with further room to adapt its structure upon specific requests. By using WorkisrOund, you will are able to mitigate the risk and burden of having limited capability in research of terms and conditions, compiling the various assignment letters, and more. If you are curious in how is it possible for our services to help you, simply contact us, and we’ll be happy to show you.