With effect from 1 March 2021, the Labour Code was amended in several important areas. Below is a brief summary of the most significant changes.
Work at home and telework
Regulation of work at home and telework, being special working arrangements agreed in an employment contract was amended in several aspects. Unlike the possibility to work through home office or extraordinary work from household during a crisis or emergency state, which do not fall in large part under this regime, work at home and telework must be explicitly agreed in the employment contract. According to its new definition, work at home is work, which would be otherwise performed at the employer’s workplace, and is performed regularly from the employee’s household, either full time or partially. The amendment also contains a new, more flexible definition of the term “employee’s household”, as an agreed place of work outside the workplace of an employer. The amendment allows an employer and an employee to agree on the extent of work to be performed by an employee from the employee’s household or alternatively to agree on the minimum scope of work that the employee performs at the employer’s workplace, if work is not to be performed only from the employee’s household. New, more flexible regulation, in addition enables an employee to determine that work is performed also from a place other than the agreed place of work and therefore it is appropriate to pay increased attention when agreeing and specifying the place of work, respectively to limit such flexibility.
In comparison to the previous regulation, the basic regime is that the employer schedules the working time of an employee working at home. The employer and the employee may agree that the employee will schedule his/her working hours (which was previously the default regime under law), or that the work at home or telework will be performed during flexible working hours. It is recommended to revise the existing employment contract if it contains explicit provision stipulating that an employee schedules his/her working hours himself/herself or references to the previous legal regime. If an employer and an employee agree that the working time will be scheduled by an employee himself, then (as before) this will mean that an employee will not be entitled e.g. to overtime pay, wage benefit for work on holidays/Saturday/Sunday/for night work and wage compensation for difficult work performance (where there will be no separate agreement). Similarly, as before, such an employee will not be entitled to wage compensation in the event of important personal obstacles at work, except for wage compensation in the event of the death of a family member.
An employer shall be obliged to reimburse an employee for demonstrably increased expenses of an employee associated with the use of his/her own tools, equipment and own items needed to perform work at home (if he/she uses them with the consent of their employer) under conditions agreed in an employment contract. It is recommended to clearly regulate such possible entitlement in the employment contracts.
Also, right of a home working employee to disconnect is newly regulated.
Option to choose between a meal voucher or financial contribution for meals
Employees of employers not providing meals in their own canteen or in another (contractual) catering facility will be entitled to choose between a meal voucher or financial contribution for meals paid together with a salary. The employee will be bound by his/her option for 12 months. Until the employee decides, the employer may, on the basis of his decision, choose whether to provide the employee with a meal voucher or with a financial contribution. If the employer entered into a contract with the issuer of meal vouchers before 1 March 2021 or will enter into it in the period from 1 March 2021 to 31 December 2021, the employer may until the expiry of such a contract, but no later than 31 December 2021, still provide meal vouchers to employees without the possibility of a financial contribution instead of them. Further details of the option may be regulated by the employer in an internal regulation as the Labour Code represents only a basic framework of minimum rules, including a binding calculation of the amount of the financial contribution to be provided and list of cases when the employee is not entitled to choose and the employer must provide financial contribution.
Other rules applicable to the provision of meal vouchers (e.g. when the entitlement arises, the amount of the employer’s contribution) remain the same, but as of 1 January 2023 the employer will be obliged to provide meal vouchers primarily in electronic form with exception that if it is not possible for an employee to use the electronic form during working hours at or near the workplace, it is possible to provide meal vouchers in paper form even after 1. January 2023. The brokerage fee for meal vouchers was reduced from the original maximum of 3% to a maximum of 2% of the value of the meal voucher.
Rules of operation of trade unions
New criterion for acceptance of trade unions at the workplace by an employer is introduced. An employer will be obliged to enable the operation of a trade union at the workplace only if membership of this trade union consists of employees of the respective employer. Following this requirement, which is still open to interpretation, a new legal procedure is introduced in case of a dispute as to whether or not a trade union meets the mentioned criterion. If a trade union at an employer (initiatively does not demonstrate that between its members are employees of the employer, the employer is not obliged to accept such trade union and any party may initiate a dispute before an arbitrator. The amended Labour Code regulates also details of the proceedings before an arbitrator, e.g. fee for the proceedings, obligations of the parties, consequences and other formalities. The new regulation is intended to tackle the issue of abuse of the right to collective association, however several open questions remain.
Greater flexibility in the temporary assignment of employees within the group
In case of a temporary assignment between a controlling entity and a controlled entity, that is without compensation, an exception was introduced from application of conditions that employment of a temporary assigned employee lasts for at least three months and there are objective operational reasons on the side of employer assigning an employee to another user employer. Compliance with those conditions caused considerable issues in practice, in particular if there was a need to post an employee shortly after commencement of employment to other company within group (often cross-border) in order to gain skills and experience through work itself.
New statutory reason for termination of employment with pensioners by employer
With effect from 1 January 2022 an employer shall be able to give notice if an employee has reached the age of 65 and at the same time the age for entitlement to a retirement pension. Both of these conditions must be met simultaneously. At the same time an employer will not have to meet any other conditions applicable for some other termination reasons. However, an employer will be obliged to pay severance pay to such employee, in the amount calculated under the same formula as applied for redundancies and depending on the duration of employment. The entitlement to severance pay will arise also in case of an agreement on employment termination for the same reason. The pre-existing retirement benefit (odchodné) remains as an entitlement alongside the severance pay. The new regulation was justified by the effort to support employment in the Slovak Republic, the intergenerational exchange of employees at the workplace and at the same time to reflect on a similar possibility of termination of the civil service relationship, on the other hand such ground for employment termination by the employer might be potentially perceived as discrimination against an employee on the basis of age.
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This legal report was prepared in March 2021 for general information purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice. The above overview is not comprehensive and only briefly summarizes the relevant changes in the legislation.