Amendment to the Labour Code and Agreements: What Employers Need to Know

As of October 1 this year, a substantial part of the amendment to the Labour Code has come into effect. Agreements on work performed outside of employment relationships (DPP and DPČ) have undergone significant reform, affecting every employer. For a long time, employing through agreements offered great flexibility in hiring people who, for time or other reasons, were not suitable for a main employment relationship. The amendment to the Labour Code limits this flexibility and makes employment based on agreements more costly.

(in the photograph, the Olomouc team of the ARROWS law firm together with several colleagues from the ARROWS tax accounting and tax office)

Key changes include a new obligation for the employer to pre-arrange working hours for the employee in a written work schedule and to acquaint the employee with it, or its changes, no later than 3 days before the start of the shift or the period for which the work schedule is arranged. However, it is possible to agree with the employee on a different time for acquaintance, but acquaintance must take place.

A less significant novelty is the new right of the employee to properly request the employer for employment in an employment relationship. The condition is employment based on an agreement for more than 180 days in the last twelve months. As an employer, you are obliged to respond to the request within 1 month of its delivery with proper justification.

At the same time, the employee has the right to ask the employer in writing for a justification of the dismissal within 1 month of receiving the notice. This cannot be requested in all cases, but only if the employee believes that they were dismissed because they demanded or used legally computed rights (e.g., took parental leave). Again, there is an obligation for the employer to provide justification.

The range of information that the employer must provide in writing to the employee based on agreements is newly expanded. This includes information about the employer, a more detailed designation of the agreed work and place of work, leave entitlement, probationary period, remuneration, and others. For this, I refer to § 77a of the Labour Code.

Employees based on agreements will now be able to use the right to work leave in the event of obstacles at work on the part of the employee or for reasons of general interest (e.g., donating blood plasma) which will be without wage compensation.

When we move to changes that will directly affect the economic sphere, it is necessary to mention 2 basic changes: the newly arising right of the employee to vacation and the provision of bonuses for work performed on holidays, at night, in a difficult work environment, and on Saturday and Sunday.

In terms of rewards from agreements, provisions will also be used for compensation for work on holidays, at night, in a difficult work environment, and on weekends. In practice, this will mean, for example, at least a 10% bonus of the average salary for work on weekends or at night. In these cases, however, the law allows for a different minimum amount of the bonus. For you as an employer, it will be appropriate to consider this when drafting the agreement. However, it will be necessary to comply with the prohibition of unequal treatment. If an employee in the main employment relationship performs the same kind of work, it is not possible to arrange for the employee on the agreement to receive a lower bonus.

The most significant change brought by the amendment is the new right of employees based on agreements to vacation. This change will come into effect on January 1, 2024. The right to vacation automatically arises under the condition that the employment relationship established by agreement continuously lasted with the same employer for at least 28 days and that the worker worked at least 80 hours.

Vacation will be calculated in the same way as for the main employment relationship. For the purposes of the amount of vacation, the Labour Code will count the weekly working hours for the employee based on the agreement as 20 hours, regardless of how many hours are actually worked if the above conditions for granting the right to vacation are met. With a standard vacation of 4 weeks, the right to about 15 hours of vacation arises (1/52 of 80 hours - 4x20 h) for every 20 hours worked.

For example, in practice, let's take an employee who worked 180 hours from April to September, i.e., nine times the fictitious weekly working hours. With a standard 4-week vacation, they earned the right to 14 hours of vacation (9/52 x 20 x 4 = 138, which rounds to 14).

The changes mentioned above ultimately make the flexibility that agreements previously offered to employers more difficult, and in some cases, employing based on agreements may no longer pay off, and it will be necessary to look for a new way. It will thus be necessary to reflect new obligations and rights in contracts and internal processes to ensure compliance with the new regulation of agreements. Our office is fully available for this, do not hesitate to contact us in case of any questions

Matěj Morávek collaborated on the article.