POLAND: New Requirements for Employers of Seconded Workers

July 20, 2016

New legislation was recently introduced for employers of workers who have been posted on short term secondments to Poland.

Employers are now required to send a statement to the National Labour Inspectorate (Państwowa Inspekcja Pracy (PIP)) informing them of their employee”s secondment to Poland. They will also be required to retain documents related to their employee”s secondment on file and must be able to provide these to PIP upon request, as well as appoint a person of contact in Poland to act as a spokesperson. Should an employee already be posted to Poland prior to or on 18^th June, employers have three months (until 18^th September 2016) to comply with the imposed notification and data retention requirements.

This legislation implements European Union (EU) Directive 2014/67/EU (The Enforcement Directive), which Member States were obliged to transpose into their national legislation by 18^th June 2016.

Statement to PIP

The statement to PIP must be submitted by the employer for any employee (both EU nationals and non-EU nationals) that is being posted to Poland on a secondment. This applies to both employees coming from within the EU, and outside the EU. The statement can be submitted electronically or on paper, and must be in the Polish or English language. This must be submitted no later than the day that the employee”s assignment commences or, if the employee was already posted to Poland before or on 18^th June, by 18^th September 2016.

Notification of Changes

Should any changes be made to the statement after submission, PIP must be notified within seven days of the date of the change. The notification can be submitted electronically or on paper.

Data Retention

Employers are required to retain documents related to their employee”s secondment (either in paper form or electronically) for the duration of the post, and for a period of two years after the secondment has ended. Should PIP request any or all of these documents the employer must provide them, along with translations into Polish if necessary, within five working days of the request. Should the request be made during the two years after the secondment has ended, the period for presenting the documents is extended to 15 days.

Employers are obligated to nominate an individual who is resident in Poland, who will be granted access to the worker”s secondment documents and authorisation to contact PIP on the employer”s behalf.

Any employer who fails to provide information or documents requested by PIP will be liable for fines of between €250 and €7500.

Benefits for Employees

The new legislation establishes protections for seconded employees in terms of working hours, holidays, pay, health and safety, maternity leave and non-discrimination, to ensure that these factors are in line with what is currently in place for locally resident employees in Poland.

Our Advice

Employers must ensure that the above procedures are complied with for all employees seconded to Poland, and are also reminded that the deadline to comply with these procedures for employees that were already seconded prior to 18^th June is 18^th September 2016. Statement and notification forms can be found here.

Should you require further information on Polish immigration, please contact us at [email protected].