Your payroll administration Q1.2024

Some of the new social law rules of 2024 will impact your HR policies and personnel administration. We hereby summarise them for you in our first quarterly newsletter of 2024.

1.SICK AND HOLIDAY DAYS

Starting from holiday year 2024, when employees fall ill during their holidays, these days will no longer lose their character as holidays. They will be converted into sick days. Employees are then given until 31/12 of the holiday year to still take these holidays. 

Your employee must:  

• immediately inform his employer of his accommodation address if it is not the home address; 
• submit a sickness certificate to the employer, stating at least the following:  

• • The reason for the incapacity for work (illness/accident);  
  • Start date and probable duration of the incapacity;  
  • Whether leaving the home is allowed or not;  
  • Name, address and signature of the attending physician. 

If the employee wishes to take his “lost” holiday days consecutively to his initially planned holiday period, he must expressly communicate this wish to the employer no later than the time he submits the sickness certificate. This extension of holidays is thus not automatic but agreed by mutual consent. 

To do – include the formalities in an annex to the work regulations 

You must compulsorily include the formalities that employees must comply with to report incapacity for work during their holidays in the work regulations. Fortunately, there is some good news in this respect: the employer can do this unilaterally. 

To avoid the employee submitting a medical certificate in a language completely incomprehensible to the employer, we recommend clarifying in the work regulations that the certificate must be drawn up in one of the national languages (dutch, german or french) and that it must be a typed certificate. 

If you are interested in a model annex to the work regulations, please do not hesitate to contact us.

2.TRANSFER OF HOLIDAYS IN CASE OF SUSPENSION OF EMPLOYMENT AGREEMENT

From 01/01/2024, employees can transfer statutory holidays to the following holiday year when it is impossible for the employee to take the holidays in the initial holiday year due to suspension of the employment agreement. The following grounds for suspension qualify:  

• Incapacity for work (due to illness or workplace accident);  
• Maternity leave;  
• Birth leave;  
• Breastfeeding leave;  
• Adoption leave;  
• Foster parent and foster care leave. 

The employee must take the transferred holidays within 24 months following the initial holiday year. 

Please note that the payment of the transferred days does always take place in the initial holiday year (for white-collar workers no later than 31/12; for blue-collar workers there will be no impact on the amount paid by the holiday fund).

3.SETTLEMENT OF DEPARTURE HOLIDAY PAY

When a white-collar worker leaves an employer, he receives the departure holiday pay, which consists of holiday pay for untaken holidays in the departure year and holiday pay for services rendered in the same year. These details are recorded in the holiday certificate. 

Up to and including 2023, the holiday certificate was settled with the new employer once in the month in which the double holiday pay was paid. From 1 January 2024, this one-off settlement will no longer be allowed. 

The new approach includes a 90% deduction for each holiday taken covered by the holiday certificate, followed by a correction in December. The settlement procedure now consists of two stages: the first stage determines the holiday rights at the time the holidays are taken and the second stage, in December, includes a final settlement of the departure holiday pay for the single holiday pay. 

It should be emphasised that this change applies only to single holiday pay, with the settlement for double holiday pay remaining unchanged.

4.RIGHT TO ANNUAL LEAVE

Taking statutory holidays in the initial holiday year remains the basic premise. 

In recent case law, the European Court of Justice emphasises the employer’s duty to actively inform employees about their holiday rights and to enable (and encourage) them to take these holidays before the end of the holiday year. 

If the employer cannot prove that it fulfilled the aforementioned information obligation, it must pay the employee the holiday pay for the untaken holidays.

5.’BACK TO WORK’ FUND

The current obligation to offer outplacement counselling to an employee, whose employment agreement is terminated due to medical force majeure, will soon lapse. 

As a replacement, the employer will be obliged to pay 1,800 EUR to the ‘Back to Work’ fund. Long-term sick people can use this fund to finance specialised assistance and service providers. 

The new scheme will take effect no later than 1 April 2024.

6.CONFIDENTIAL COUNSELLOR MANDATORY IN COMPANIES WITH AT LEAST 50 EMPLOYEES

Does your company employ 50 or more employees? Then you are obliged to appoint a confidential counsellor since 1 December 2023. 

The confidential counsellor must be a member of the company staff and is appointed by mutual agreement between the employer and the employees (representatives). If you appoint several confidential counsellors, it is sufficient that at least one of them is a staff member. However, the confidential counsellor may not be part of the managerial staff, or the trade union delegation or the employer or staff delegation in the works council or in the company’s Committee for prevention and protection at work. 

For companies employing fewer than 50 employees, nothing will change. They only have to appoint a confidential counsellor if all members of the trade union delegation or, in their absence, all employees request it. 

If your company employs at least 20 but less than 50 employees and you appoint a confidential counsellor (whether mandatory or not), it must be a staff member if the prevention adviser in your company is part of an external prevention service. For companies employing fewer than 20 employees, it is not mandatory that the confidential counsellor is a staff member.

7.TRAINING OF YOUR EMPLOYEES

Individual right to training 

If your company employs at least 20 employees, each of your full-time employees enjoys an individual right to five training days a year as from this year. If you employ at least 10 but less than 20 employees, it concerns one training day per year. 

For employees taking up employment during the calendar year or working part-time, the right must be calculated pro rata. We can always assist you with this calculation. 

Whether your company meets the condition on the number of employees must be calculated every two years using the average employment in FTE during a specific reference period, specifically the fourth quarter of the year before last and the first three quarters of the last year before the start of a two-year period. The two-year period relating to individual training rights started for the first time on 1 January 2023. Thus, for the years 2024 and 2025, the average employment during the period from 1 October 2022 to 30 September 2023 is considered. 

If the individual training right has not been specified in a sectoral collective labour agreement, you must draw up an individual training account for each employee with a number of obligatory entries. You must inform the employee of his training right for the first time when the training account is introduced, and then every time the employee asks for it and, in addition, at least once a year regarding the balance of training days the employee still has. 

Employees enjoy some flexibility in the fulfilment of their training right. In fact, unused training days are transferred to the following year. Only after five years is the balance of training days reset to zero. The first five-year period started on 1 January 2024. We stress that this is a right and not a duty for the employee. However, as an employer, you will have to be able to prove that you have given the employee every opportunity to take sufficient training. 

Please note that different provisions may apply at sector level regarding the number of training days. Within Joint Committee 200, for example, it is provided that in companies with more than 20 employees, only three training days must be offered to a full-time employee in 2024, four days as from 2026 and five days only as from 2028. 

Annual training plan 

We would also like to point out the obligation to draw up an annual training plan. Since 2023, companies employing 20 or more employees have been obliged to draw up a paper or electronic document listing the training courses offered (formal and informal) and the target group of employees for which they are intended. In this plan, you must also explain in what way the listed training courses contribute to the realisation of the individual training right. 

Whether your company meets the condition of the number of employees must also be calculated here every two years on the basis of the same reference period as for the individual training right. 

Please note that the two-year period relating to the annual training plan started for the first time on 1 January 2023. These two-year periods therefore do not coincide with the periods of the individual training right. 

By 31 March 2024 at the latest, you must have drawn up the plan for 2024. The draft plan must be delivered to the works council or trade union delegation by early March at the latest, who must give their opinion on the draft by 15 March 2024. In the absence of a works council or trade union delegation, you will deliver the draft to the employees by 15 March 2024 at the latest. 

In principle, the training plan is form-free, although minimum conditions may be set at sector level by universally binding collective labour agreements, which had to be filed with FPS ELSD by 30 September 2023 at the latest. If you have sector-specific questions, you can of course always contact us. 

You should always keep the training plan in the company and employees should have easy access to it. 

Federal Learning Account 

No later than 1 April 2024, you as an employer will be required to record formal and informal training of your employees on an electronic platform, the Federal Learning Account. This digital application will be available to the employer, the employee, and the government to track individual and sectoral training rights and to consult an overview of the training courses taken and the employee’s training credit. 

Specifically, you will have two additional obligations from the platform’s entry into force:  

• quarterly register and update each employee’s individual training right data on the platform; 
• annually inform employees who do not have an account in ‘mycareer’ or who do not have an e-mail address linked to the ‘e-box natural persons’ about the existence, content and purpose of the Federal Learning Account.

8.INDEXATION: A FOREWARNED EMPLOYER IS WORTH TWO

Belgium has automatic wage indexation. In several sectors, wages were indexed on 1 January 2024. Usually, this concerns an indexation of all real wages, but in some sectors the indexation only concerns the minimum wages. 

Be sure to take this into account in your payroll administration and feel free to contact us if you have any questions about this. 

Indexation on 1 January 2024 

• In the construction sector (JC 124), minimum wages and effective wages were indexed by 0.45%;  
• In the additional joint committee for white-collar workers (JC 200), minimum wages and effective wages were indexed by 1.48%;  

• In the metal sector for blue-collar workers (JC 111), a CLA increase was introduced on the national minimum hourly wage. This increase amounts to €0.2606. Provincial minimum hourly wages increase insofar as they are lower;  
• In the metal sector for white-collar workers (JC 209), a CLA increase of €80 was introduced on the guaranteed minimum monthly wage. Wage scales increase insofar as they are lower.

9.TELEWORKING ALLOWANCE AS OF 1 DECEMBER

Employers can grant a lump-sum net allowance to their employees who regularly and structurally work from home (at least one day a week). This allowance serves to cover the costs incurred as a result of this teleworking. 

From 1 December 2023, the telework allowance may not exceed 151.70 EUR per month. 

The lump-sum net allowance you wish to grant to the employee must always be justifiable. We therefore recommend drawing up a teleworking policy that defines teleworking with all its concrete modalities, including the allocation of the teleworking allowance. Of course, we can help you draw up this policy and develop a teleworking policy.

10.CO2 REFERENCE VALUES COMPANY CAR

The CO2 reference values for the benefit in kind calculations for company cars for 2024 are not yet known at the time of publication of this newsletter.

11.NEW FARES SNCB

From 01/02/2024, SNCB fares will increase by 5.9%. Whether this increase has an impact on the intervention as employer in the transport costs of the employee depends on the agreements at company or sectoral level. 

In JC 200 this is the case: there, the employer intervention for train transport is equal to 80% of the price of the 2nd class train ticket and this from the first kilometre. Furthermore, the indexation of train fares will also affect the employer’s intervention in private transport. In 2023, this employer’s intervention in private transport was only mandatory for white-collar employees in JC 200 whose annual gross pay did not exceed 29,680 EUR (the adjusted amount for 2024 is not yet known). 

12.BICYCLE ALLOWANCE INCREASE

Employees who choose to cycle to work will get an extra boost. The amount of the bicycle allowance will be increased to 0.35 EUR per kilometre from 01/01/2024. 

Note that this maximum exempted amount is included in the supplementary collective labour agreement No 164, which only applies if the sector to which an employee belongs did not conclude a collective labour agreement regarding the bicycle allowance. In other words, the amount determined at sectoral level takes precedence over the amount included in the supplementary collective labour agreement No. 164. 

For example, an employer falling under JC 200 must grant a bicycle allowance of only 0.27 EUR per kilometre to its employees who regularly use a bicycle for their commute to work, with a maximum of 40 km per day (there and back). 

Furthermore, an annual maximum tax-exempt bicycle allowance of 2,500 EUR is also introduced. 

The bicycle allowance is only tax exempt for employees who opt for the lump-sum deduction of their professional expenses in their tax return. For employees who prove their actual costs, the bicycle allowance will be taxable.

13.CONFIRMED: NEW RULES ON FLEXI-JOBS FROM 1 JANUARY 2024

In our previous newsletter, we already informed you about the agreement reached by the federal government regarding the new rules on flexi-jobs. That agreement has since been enacted into law and that law has been published. 

From 1 January this year, it will be possible to use flexi-jobs in as many as 12 additional sectors. These include various subcommittees of the food sector, the agriculture and horticulture sector and the events sector. 

Furthermore, the law also confirms the strictures we previously drew your attention to. Thus, as an employer, you will:  

• now have to pay your flexi-job employee at least the sector’s minimum wage, except in the hospitality sector. There, a minimum wage of 10.97 EUR per hour currently still applies;  
• in addition to a minimum wage, also have to respect a maximum wage of 150% of the wage scale;  
• have to pay 28% in employer contributions instead of the previous 25%. 

A major fiscal tightening for your (non-retired) flexi-job employees: there is now an annual threshold of 12,000 EUR that can be earned as additional untaxed income. Income from a flexi-job exceeding this threshold will be subject to the ordinary tax regime. 

To avoid abuse, from this year onwards there is also a ban on carrying out a flexi-job in one of the companies affiliated to the one where one works at least 4/5ths, as well as with the employer where, in the quarter in which one wishes to carry out the flexi-job, one was already previously employed under another employment contract or statutory appointment. Employees who change from full-time to 4/5th employment must also observe a six-month waiting period before they can start a flexi-job elsewhere.

14.RETAINING A MOBILE NUMBER AFTER DISMISSAL

It sometimes happens that an employer and employee agree that the employee’s personal mobile phone number will be transferred to the employer upon employment. If that happened, the employer became the owner of the mobile phone number from then on. 

Consequently, if the employee was dismissed, he had no right to “reclaim” the number unless otherwise agreed. 

In practice, this gave rise to many discussions. Now, more than before, the phone number is also often linked to different apps. Think, for instance, of ‘Whatsapp’ and ‘itsme’. Thus, having to change mobile phone number after a dismissal has a big (and especially annoying) impact on the employee. 

For this reason, from 1 January this year, the law provides that the employee has the right to ask for the right of use of the mobile number back within a month of termination of the employment agreement, provided that he himself had the right of use before the conclusion of the employment agreement. The employer cannot refuse that request if it is done in accordance with this law. 

Especially for staff in sales positions, e.g. sales representatives, it is therefore advisable to provide a professional mobile phone number. That way, even after an employee’s dismissal, you as an employer can keep the phone number and resume customer contacts with that same number.

15.REINFORCE YOUR HR DEPARTMENT WITH ONE OF OUR EXPERTS

Are you (temporarily) short of hands in your HR department? Whether you need to cope with an absence or need extra support and expertise for a specific project, Van Havermaet can assist you with one of our payroll experts or HR consultants. Do not hesitate to contact us!