Latest news and information
- Company Secrets in Germany – Are you sure that they are still safe?
- Do your employees in Germany use WhatsApp for business purposes? – Beware if they do
- The clock is ticking! – Is your German client/ subsidiary ready for the new data protection law for employees?
- German Employment Law 2017 – Changes and Outlook
- Performance Evaluation through monitoring of calls and data recording
The main reason has to be seen in recent decisions of German courts and opinions publicized by data protection authorities e.g. in Schleswig-Holstein, Thuringia and Lower Saxony.
In order to enforce the new regulations in practice especially the GDPR establishes drastic penalties. Fines to the height of 20 Mio Euros or 4% of the total worldwide turnover of the undertaking in previous business year can be imposed.
As before, special rules apply for employee data. This brief overview explains which organisational steps should now be taken by companies, which have not yet started a review in order to avoid huge financial risks as of spring 2018.
2017 is an election year in Germany. Usually this means that parties change into the campaign modus and legislative amendments are rare. This is not the case in 2017, partly due to the fact that most pundits expect the grand coalition to continue after the election.
The evaluation of employee performance and quality of work is essential for employees in all industries. Deficits can lead to complaints of customers and clients and thus may seriously endanger the success of the business enterprise. Specific issues arise in call centers, where main task of employees is answering calls in order to deal with the customer problems or to create new business. The solicitation of new business through calls initiated by the employee is a main line of business for many companies. Employers in such situation have a valid interest in monitoring and / or recording both the verbal communication between the employees and the customers and to record the details of calls that have been made. Employees on the other hand have a valid interest to protect their personality rights, the same applies to customers who call or are contacted.
2016 promises to be an interesting year in German employment law. Only a few days after a draft law on new regulations for temporary work and the differentiation between employment relationships and freelance and works contracts have been published (although it has been meanwhile been withdrawn and will be newly discussed in January) a new draft law on equal pay for men and women has been published by the competent Ministry for Families, Senior persons, Women and Youth. Further the government announced to prepare a further law giving employees the right to return to a fulltime job after having reduced the work time previously.
EMPLAWYERS partner Roland Falder has published a trilingual handbook on German und Chinese labour and employment laws together with his co-author Michael Lorenz, international tax expert and owner of a law firm based in Bangkok and Hong Kong. Roland Falder has a longstanding experience with international secondments to and from China and is a frequency speaker on Chinese employment law topics.
The handbook contains a description of the principles of German and Chinese labour, social security and tax laws in German, English and Chinese. It further includes templates and excerpts from relevant legal materials (such as the Sino German Double Taxation Treaty).
The book will be useful for foreign HR experts dealing with China and makes communication between HR departments and consultants in China and abroad easier. Even experts only interested in German or Chinese employment law will be able to benefit from the handbook.
The book is available in stationary German and Chinese bookstores and with many online dealers (such as amazon.de).
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has decided that time spent travelling to and from first and last customers by workers without a fixed office must be regarded as working time.
In July 2015 we informed about the non-binding opinion of the Advocate General and the upcoming decision of the ECJ concerning the Spanish case Federación de Servicios Privados del sindicato Comisiones Obreras v. Tyco Integrated Security SL, Tyco Integrated Fire & Security Corporation Servicios SA.
In its decision the European Court of Justice has now acted on the suggestion of the Advocate General and has held, that for the purposes of the Working Time Directive the time spent travelling between an employee's home and the premises of the customer designated by the employer at the beginning and end of each day, should count as working time.
It is a typical situation of daily HR work in Germany. The six month (probationary) period of newly hired employee is nearing its end, but a final decision on the extension of the employment relationship has not yet been taken. The employer is not 100 % sure about the employees performance, but would like to give him another chance. Another case is a long-term sickness during the probation period, which does not yet allow a proper performance evaluation. The problem is, that after six month continued employment many employees (in entities with more than 10 employees) enjoy full protection against dismissal.
The European Working Time Directive sets clear and strict limits for permitted hours of work to protect the employees' health and safety. Work-time is any time that is not rest time, there is nothing in between. Thus for certain activities such as commuting from home to work and vice versa it needs to be determined whether such time is considered work or free-time.
While normal commuting (until now) is not counted as working time the European Court of Justice now considers a decision that might change the landscape for whole industries.
According to the opinion of the Advocate General in a Spanish case of workers without fixed work base the travelling time to and from home to a costumer must be seen as working time.