In addition to our “Reorganizations & COVID-19” webinar, please find below further information regarding reorganizations, including useful links and practical lists.
Sheets
The detailed PPT-sheets of the webinar “Reorganizations & COVID-19” can be found here. These sheets include a detailed explanation of what has been discussed during our webinar. Also, please find here a clear timeline regarding the reorganization process.
Overview of UWV-documents
To substantiate its application to the Dutch Labour Office (‘UWV’) for dismissal based on business economic grounds, an employer will need to submit multiple documents together with its definitive UWV-application. Here you will find an useful overview of which documents an employer should submit.
Checklists
In addition to our webinar, we also made several checklists for the communication plan, the reorganization plan and the social plan. These checklists can be found here.
Reflection principle
When selecting employees for redundancy, you cannot simply pick and choose as you please. You will first need to determine within which job/function group, staff will need to be made redundant. Subsequently you will first have to let go of specific groups of workers (temporary workers, self-employed workers, seconded staff, etc.).
After this process, you are still not ready yet. You will also have to follow a mandatory order of dismissal, which is commonly referred to as the ‘reflection principle’. Based on this reflection principle, employees are divided into different age groups. For each age group, the same number of employees should be made redundant and in each age group the employees with the shortest length of service are designated as redundant. In addition to these statutory rules, the UWV has included a number of practical examples in its policy rules to further clarify how the reflection principle should be applied. You can find these examples here. Please note that this examples are in Dutch.
Transition Fee
A handy tool for calculating the statutory transition payment can be found on the website of the Dutch government. You can find a link to this tool here. Please note that the tool is in Dutch.
When calculating the transition allowance, the number of years, months and days an employee has been employed by the employer must be calculated. For every year of employment, an allowance of 1/3 monthly salary, pro rata for part of a year of employment, is applicable.
The transition allowance is calculated by:
- multiplying the number of full years of employment by 1/3 of the gross monthly salary,
- for the remaining months, weeks and days, take the actual gross salary received by the employee during this time, multiply it by (1/3 gross monthly salary / 12)
then add a) and b) together.
It is important to note that a maximum applies to the transition allowance that must be paid to an employee; this maximum is either €84,000 gross or – if the employee earns more than €84,000 gross per year; one year’s salary.
NOW
The NOW scheme comprises a total of 5 application periods spread over the period from March 2020 to June 2021. Because the characteristics and conditions differ per application period, the UWV has detailed the various application periods and the associated conditions in a handy overview. You can find this overview here. Please note that this overview is in Dutch.
Tips & Tricks
Finally, we have drawn up a number of tips & tricks which can be used in a reorganization. These can be found here.
The above information is not advice and no rights can be derived from it. We recommend that you contact us if you wish to reorganize or have further questions about this. You can contact Nicky de Groot (+31 6 54 71 00 48 / nicky.de.groot@pallas.nl) / Michelle Maaijen (+31 6 53 57 91 67 / michelle.maaijen@pallas.nl) for this.