As an employer, you may already be planning your holidays for 2025. There are various ways to determine the annual statutory holiday. For example, you can opt for an individual arrangement, in which the holiday days are determined by mutual agreement between employer and employee. Another option is to determine the company's closing period via a collective agreement.
COLLECTIVE CLOSING PROCEDURE
A step-by-step procedure is provided for determining the collective closure.
Responsibility begins with the sectoral agreements. If the joint committee does not make a decision on this, it is up to the works council to take this up. If no agreement is reached there either, the employer can make an agreement with the trade union delegation. In the latter case, a collective holiday can be established by means of an agreement between the employer and all employees.
FORMALITIES
The dates of the collective closure must be included in the work regulations. For the first recording (the first year), the amendment procedure of the work regulations must be followed. After that, it is sufficient to announce the new dates annually by means of a message and add this as an appendix to the work regulations (each time before 31 December).
The dates of collective holidays must be clearly visible in the company. In addition, a copy must be provided to the employees and a notification must be made to the competent directorate for the Supervision of Social Laws. This notification must be made within 8 days following the change in the work regulations.
WHAT IF MY EMPLOYEE DOES NOT HAVE ENOUGH HOLIDAY RIGHTS?
Everything is well arranged, but what if one of your employees is not entitled to vacation, or does not have enough days to bridge the entire closure period? In that case, this employee can receive a replacement income.
Employees with no or limited entitlement to holidays can claim unemployment benefits during the collective closure.
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