The international mobility of people is one of the most effective tools for companies' human resources teams to improve the value proposition of employees in order to enhance their personal development, offer the possibility of adapting personal situations to their working lives, or simply reward the performance of high-potential talent in organizations.
In addition, and according to the latest European statistics, we can see how business travel has been increasing exponentially in recent years, placing these numbers very close to 2019 levels, which leads us to think that if we have not surpassed them in 2023, we will do so in 2024.
In this context, the European Union, seeking to establish homogeneous rules of the game at the labour level within the territory and promoting the application of the same rights to all workers in it, has been in recent years, establishing more and more regulations that impose obligations on companies in this area and that aim to guarantee the free movement of people within the territory of the Union, avoiding labor dumping.
Thus, and in chronological order, we find the European Regulation on the Coordination of Social Security Systems, the Posting Workers Directive, or the recently published Directive on Pay Transparency.
In the specific case of the European Directive on Posted Workers, it establishes the following obligations in the event of temporary posting of workers to another EU member state:
- Apply the labour laws of the destination country during the posting
- Apply the minimum wage of a position with similar characteristics in the country of destination during the posting.
- Notify, on behalf of the posting company, to the social security authority of destination the effective posting of the worker before it occurs.
When transposed by the member states, this directive has given rise to 27 different regulations on the matter, each in its corresponding language, including differences in terms of temporality, different minimum wages and different registration and reporting obligations.
In addition, and in the event of non-compliance with the aforementioned reporting obligation, each country has established a penalty regime that establishes minimum penalties of an average of 3,000 euros per trip and maximum penalties of 50,000 euros. In the case of Belgium, such penalties can even be criminal penalties if certain requirements are met.
This, added to the fact that the European Labour Authority has announced that it will promote multi-country inspection processes, makes it imperative that companies have tools such as Mercer Travel Tracking that allow them to comply with this obligation in a simple and safe way, as well as take the appropriate measures to guarantee legal compliance within the framework of their movements in the European Union.
Learn more about Mercer Travel Tracking