Spotlight On Employee Leave Entitlements In EMEA

Christian Glagla, Head of Client HR Services and Angela Bartl, MD - Strategy and Business Development both from TMF Group Germany, examine the different ways employee leave is applied in countries across Europe and the Middle East. Managing multi-country payroll can be made more complex by specific employee leave entitlements that must be adhered to. In some European nations public holidays must be paid, and can range from 14 days in Malta to 12 in Russia and just two in Norway. Germany has certain official paid public holidays, and different German states then have their own set paid holidays, so company payroll functions must account for regional variations within the country. In the Netherlands, public holidays that fall on a weekend are not transferred to the next working day.

Keeping on top of the different government-sanctioned days can be difficult, but how else can employee leave entitlements differ across EMEA?

Norway

Norwegian employees are not entitled to holiday pay during the first year of their employment, but they are still entitled to leave. However if they have worked with another employer prior to their current job, they will receive holiday pay from the previous employer. The holiday pay (called "feriepenger") is based on the income of the previous year and can include extra work-related remuneration such as bonuses. Technically, this is supposed to be paid at the time the leave is taken, but to ease the administrative burden on payroll, most companies will process it in June and replace the salary for that month with the holiday pay.

Employers contribute between 10.2% and 12% of the employee's monthly salary to holiday pay, and the standard leave duration is five weeks with a minimum duration of 21 days. However, where an employee is over 60 years of age the entitlement may be extended for one additional week.

France

French citizens are entitled to 30 days of annual leave, but employees who wish to work for more than 35 hours a week receive up to 22 days extra, which is called the RTT (Reduction du Temps). As a result, companies have to closely track any extra hours logged by employees and factor them into their payroll processing. Any further hours after the RTT period are usually compensated with remuneration. Employees in France that take a portion of their holiday outside of the traditional summer leave period of August can also be entitled to bonus leave days.

Russia

If an employee in Russia is completing distance...