After the summer „vacation season” it is due time for the employer to review, how many days off the employees have taken so far, owing to the necessity of planning the remaining vacation days. In our current post we kindly draw your attention to the importance of vacation planning.

After the summer „vacation season” it is due time for the employer to review, how many days off the employees have taken so far, owing to the necessity of planning the remaining vacation days.

Which regulations shall we consider?

The Basic Law ensures all employees the right to require paid leave and the elaborated details are included in the Labour Code.

The employer is obliged to allocate the annual leave in every case. The employer has the obligation to listen to the employees’ requirements in advance, yet the employer is not bounded by these requests regarding the release of leave (in general).

The employee is entitled to take 7 working days off – except of the first three months of employment – maximum in two parts on days predetermined by the employee. The amount needs to be proportionally considered in case the employment either started or ended during the year.

The employer must allocate the leave for the employee due in the calendar year, even if it does not require it. The remaining vacation days can only be paid in case of termination of employment.

Based on the general rules the leave can only be ensured if the employer gives at least fifteen days’ notice about it to the employee. The leave determined by the employee (7 working days) has the same fifteen-days’ notice obligation.

Since the aim and function of vacation is the work-related regeneration, based on the law it is needed to take at least once 14 days contiguous leave per annuum in order to be freed from its work obligations. This rule can be the subject of agreement in the labour contract or collective agreement with an adjusted number of days off.

In principle the leave needs to be ensured for the employee in due year, but in determined cases it is possible to allocate the vacation days in the following year:

• the compensatory leave regarding the age of employee (between 1-10 days) can be allocated until 31st December after due year based on agreement. The agreement must pertain only the given year.
• if the employment started on 1st October or after, the whole proportionally granted vacation time can be allocated until 31st March of the following year.
• if the vacation time starts in the due year and ends in the following year, it can be considered as leave of due year up to 5 working days.
• in case the vacation time cannot be released owing to a reason arisen by the employee (e.g. the employee is on non-paid leave in the aim of childcare) the remaining days need to be allocated after the 60th day of return.
• in case of the company’s especially important economic interest or a reason directly and negatively affected the operation of company, one quarter of the leave can be allocated until 31st March in the following year (if the collective agreement gives authorisation for this).

As a response of economic difficulties caused by coronavirus several companies sent the employees either on paid or on non-paid leave. The excessive release of vacation time may cause problems in the life of firms during the year. For instance, in case of a planned downtime the employer is obliged to free its employees from their working obligations, even if they do not have the enough days off. For them the compensation needs to be calculated and disbursed based on the rules of downtime. Please note, that the law does not give the possibility to allocate the vacation time in due year on the burden of leave of the following year.

Notwithstanding with the foregoing, those employers can be also in “trouble”, whose economic activity has not been affected by the virus and who have been able to employ their employees continuously. They are also obliged to allocate the remaining days for their employees with the consideration of mentioned rules, since the not-released leave could result penalties and fines.

The disaster around leave can only be avoided, if the employers monitor the leave during the whole year. If the employers allocate the leave proportionally, continuously, they will be able to plan adequately. In this case it will not cause a negative surprise, if they need to pay an increased amount of payment for a leaving employee owing to the remaining days off, or in opposition to this situation, if the employee has taken more vacation days than he proportionally should have during the employment.

It is worth taking work schedule of relocated working days, public holidays, long weekends into account, as a lot of employees intend to take days off during these periods.
The work schedule of relocated working days will be for the rest of the year as per below:

Friday, 23rd October – rest day
Saturday, 12th December – working day
Thursday, 24th December – rest day

SHOULD YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS REGARDING THE ABOVE PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO CONTACT US.

Hajnal Péter
hajnal.peter@pkf.hu

Kisné Szabó Anna
szabo.anna@pkf.hu