The Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment (SZW) has recently published a Factsheet An article has been published on sharing leave. The fact that employees share their leave with their colleagues is nothing new, but in practice it does not happen very often yet.
Something similar to sharing leave is donating holiday entitlement or overtime to a charity.
Sharing leave
The idea of sharing leave often arises when an employee needs to step in to care for a sick child, a sick partner or parents in need of care (informal care). When this employee has used up all their annual leave and all options for special or exceptional leave, colleagues may wish to help by sacrificing part of their own leave to provide extra leave for their colleague who is providing informal care.
Employers decide for themselves whether to allow shared leave within their organisation. It is advisable to involve the works council or another employee representative body in the deliberations on this matter.
Employees cannot, under any circumstances, be obliged to share their leave with their colleague(s).
The factsheet states that leave sharing can be organised in various ways. However, if the “one-hour-for-one-hour” option is not used, the advice is to discuss the implications with the Tax and Customs Administration in advance. This option means that an employee gives up 1 hour in exchange for 1 hour of (additional) leave from a colleague, regardless of their role, pay scale or salary level.
Statutory minimum leave
The statutory holiday entitlement to which every employee is entitled amounts each year to four times the weekly working hours agreed in the employee’s employment contract. An employee who works full-time (i.e. 5 days a week) is therefore entitled to 4 × 5 = 20 days’ holiday per year. This statutory minimum may not, under mandatory statutory provisions, be reduced in any way. An employee may therefore not share these statutory holiday entitlements with colleagues.
In addition to the statutory holiday entitlement, the collective labour agreement or individual employment contract often entitles employees to additional days’ holiday. These days’ holiday, which go beyond the statutory entitlement, may be used to share leave with colleagues. Furthermore, overtime, for example, can be used to enable a colleague who is an informal carer to take additional leave.
Types of leave
In addition to the statutory and non-statutory holiday entitlement mentioned above, the Netherlands also has various other types of paid and unpaid leave.
- Maternity and childbirth leave
- Maternity leave
- Parental leave
- Adoption or foster care leave
- Care leave (long-term and short-term)
- Emergency leave
According to the factsheet, leave can only be shared if all these types of leave are insufficient.