Your payroll administration in Q3 – 2019

1. VOLUNTARY OVERTIME HOURS: UP TO 120 HOURS PER YEAR

Employees already have the possibility to work 100 voluntary overtime hours a year. This limit has recently been increased to 120 overtime hours per year. By means of a sectoral collective labour agreement, this limit can even be increased to 360 hours per year (e.g. hospitality industry).

Voluntary overtime hours differ from the normal overtime hours, more specifically:

• Voluntary overtime is of a voluntary nature;
• No compensation time is required;
• The consent of an internal or external service is not required;
• The first 25 voluntary overtime hours worked do not count towards the internal overtime hour limit.

As mentioned before, it is mandatory to draw up a written agreement between the employer and the employee prior to the performance of these overtime hours. This agreement is valid for a maximum of 6 months.

2. MORE FLEXIBILITY WHEN TAKING PARENTAL LEAVE AND LEAVE FOR MEDICAL ASSISTANCE

As from 1 June 2019, full-time employees can take one-tenth of their parental leave for a maximum of 40 months. In practice, this means that they can take half a day of leave every week or a full day of leave every two weeks.

The conditions for taking full-time and half-time parental leave have also changed. Half-time parental leave can now be requested per month. Full-time parental leave (and, by extension, full-time medical assistance) can now also be taken in weeks. A suspension of four weeks is equivalent to a full-time suspension of one month.

However, this additional flexibilisation is not a right! The employer must agree. In case of refusal, the employer must inform the employee of this decision in writing.

3. RISK OF A NEW CONTRIBUTION WHEN EMPLOYING INVOLUNTARY PART-TIME EMPLOYEES

Involuntary part-time employees are employees who wish to work full-time, but who already work part-time in anticipation of a suitable full-time job. These employees can receive an additional unemployment allowance from the NEO.

The aim is to offer these employees a full-time employment as soon as possible. That is why their employer must, whenever he has additional hours available, make this offer to his involuntary part-time employees first.

From now on, the NSSO and the NEO will provide data on involuntary employees and their employers to the inspection services. If checks show that the employer does not make such an offer, an accountability contribution is due to the NSSO. This contribution amounts to 25 EUR per month for each involuntary part-time employee who actually receives an income guarantee benefit and will be collected from April 2020 onwards.

4. ARRANGEMENTS FOR ANNUAL LEAVE IN THE SUMMER PERIOD

The leave period is coming up. As an employer, you naturally want to prevent everyone from taking their leave at the same time. The legislative framework is less developed in this respect and is limited to stating that employees with school-age children should preferably be granted leave during the school holidays.

You can tackle this problem at company level. You can create your own framework by means of the work regulations. For example, you can determine the minimum number of employees that must be present per department or ensure a better spread of leave by stating that a number of leave days must be taken before a certain period of time. Please note that your employees are entitled to two weeks of consecutive leave between May and October (a period of 3 weeks applies to underage employees).

If you have any questions about the content of this news flash or if you would like assistance in drawing up, for example, the compulsory agreement on voluntary overtime or the amendment of your work regulations, you can of course always contact us.

Publication date: 18 June 2019