1. Introduction
Poland has been a part of the European Union since 2004. This step forced governments to simplify procedures of pursuit of economic activities. However, the number of regulations concerning doing business is still huge. To start the simplest business a person must comply with registration regulations, labour law requirements, social security contributions and taxes. Abovementioned factors pose following risks on company/proprietorship – risk of unexamined requests, delays, controls, fines.
The Law Office “A. Sobczyk I Współpracownicy” is dedicated to corporations. Our assistance to corporate clients includes the complete range of labour law as well as all employment related matters, such as personal data protection, compliance, working time, social contributions and migration law. The Law Office also offers comprehensive assistance during trials and court litigations, as well as other official proceedings or audits performed by respective authorities.
2. Labour and Employment Law Requirements
a) Employer Policy Requirements
1) Remuneration regulations:
- Any employer employing at least 50 employees, who are not covered by a single-establishment collective labour agreement, or any multi-establishment collective labour agreement, shall fix the conditions of remuneration for work in the rules relating to remuneration;
- Any employer employing less than 50 employees who are not covered by a single-establishment collective labour agreement or any multi-establishment collective labour agreement, may fix the conditions of remuneration for work in the rules for remuneration;
- Any employer employing at least 20 and less than 50 employees who are not covered by a single-establishment collective labour agreement or any multi-establishment collective labour agreement, shall fix the conditions of remuneration for work in the rules for remuneration, if the trade union organisation of an establishment submits a request for fixing thereof.
In the rules for remuneration the employer should also fix other benefits connected to work and the principles of allocating them. Moreover the rules of remuneration shall be fixed by the employer. If there exists in the establishment a trade union organisation functioning in relation to the employer, the employer shall agree the rules of remuneration with such organisation.
2) Workplace regulations:
- An employer employing at least 50 employees shall implement workplace regulations, unless the provisions of a collective labour agreement apply;
- An employer employing less than 50 employees may implement workplace regulations, unless the provisions of a collective labour agreement apply;
- An employer employing at least 20 and less than 50 employees shall implement workplace regulations, provided that the trade union organisation of an establishment submits a request for introducing thereof, unless the provisions of a collective labour agreement apply.
Workplace regulations while specifying the rights and duties of employer and employees connected with order in the employing establishment, must specify in particular: organisation of work, conditions for staying on the premises of the employing establishment during working time and after hours, equipping of employees with tools and materials, clothing and working shoes, and with means of individual protection and personal hygiene, working-time systems and schedules and adopted working-time settlement systems, night-time; the date, the place, the time and frequency of payment of remuneration; the types of work prohibited to young employees and women; types of work and list of working posts open to young employees for the purposes of occupational training; the list of the types of light work which may be performed by young adults employed for other purposes than occupational training; duties applicable to work safety and hygiene and fire protection, including the method of advising employees of occupational risks connected with work performed thereby; the method adopted by a given employer to confirm the time of an employee’s arrival at work, their presence at work and leave of absence from work.
b) Employee Training Requirements
Employers are required to complete certain health and safety training activities. The following is statutorily mandated training that employers must provide:
- general, initial health and safety training; and
- workplace training.
c) Employment Agreements
A contract of employment is concluded for an indefinite term, for a fixed term, or for the trial period.
A contract of employment should define the parties to the contract, the type of the contract, date of conclusion of the contract, and the conditions of work and pay, in particular:
- the nature of the work;
- the place of work;
- the amount of remuneration for work corresponding to the type of the work, including individual components of remuneration;
- working time;
- the date of commencement of work.
A contract of employment shall be concluded in writing. If a contract of employment is not concluded in written form, the employer should present to the employee written confirmation of the parties to the contract, type of the contract and conditions of the contract, no later than on the date of commencement of work by the employee.
No later than within 7 days after the conclusion of a contract of employment, the employer shall inform the employee in writing and in detail about the conditions of work.
3. Corporate Law Requirements
a) Compliance for Incorporation
First of all, the person must decide what kind of activity is the most profitable and/or possible. Business may by conducted as an individual person’s business activity, corporations (limited liability company and joint-stock company) and partnerships (general partnership, limited liability partnership, limited partnership, limited joint-stock partnership).
To incorporate a new company (in general) the agreement/articles of incorporation etc. must be concluded and share capital must be paid. In most cases, a public notary should be involved. After this step it is obligatory to perform registration in the National Court Register. District Courts keep the National Court Registers.
b) Post Incorporation Obligations
The newly incorporated company must open a bank account. This bank account must be provided to respective Tax Authority.
The company must also register itself as VAT payer, of course if the activity is linked with VAT.
4. Payroll and Benefits Providers
It is popular for all businesses to make use of services of payroll and benefits providers. Because of the complexity of tax and social insurance system in Poland, even the smallest individual business activities hire accounting companies to provide such services. Also making use of benefit providers is more and more popular among local and smaller companies – as for now most of the benefit providers’ clients were large, mainly international companies.
