It’s hard to underestimate the importance of building a strong brand for your business. When the public has a positive perception of your business dealings, it helps you retain and attract customers and talent. Protecting your brand with posted worker compliance can be the difference between growth and struggling to break even.
Much of brand perception rests on a company’s good reputation around the quality and value of products and services. But it can also include ethical concerns, such as how a business responds to environmental standards or whether it abides by national and international laws.
For businesses managing global workforces, maintaining a strong brand is one reason why you should comply with the EU Posted Workers Directive.
The Posted Workers Directive is a set of rules around cross-border work in Europe. The aim is to protect local workers from an overabundance of competition from foreign employees sent to work in their countries.
New regulations that came into effect in July 2020 have increased the compliance requirements for businesses with workforces across Europe. Most countries now require organizations to register postings before employees enter the country in which they will work. Given that many different types of work are subject to registration and European travel is often arranged at short notice, it’s easy for businesses to miss the deadlines. The fact that the directive is applied slightly differently in each country adds further complexity.
Though the number of posted workers has fallen drastically during the recent pandemic, it’s expected to rise again. In 2017, 2.8 million workers were posted from one European Union (EU) country to another, so the number of individuals likely to be affected by even a moderate travel recovery is high.
The risks of failing to comply with the posted-worker rules are significant. Businesses can face fines – ranging from €1,165 in Malta up to €10,000 in Austria and Finland – or be banned from sending workers abroad.
Immigration authorities can also report non-compliance publicly to ‘name and shame’ businesses who break the rules. This can be hugely damaging to corporate reputations.
So how can organizations be sure to comply?
The most efficient way to meet posted worker registration requirements is to provide a centralized solution that consistently and proactively manages and tracks the process.
This is especially true because registrations are not always simple or quick. Information can take time to assemble as it comes from a range of sources, including pay slips from payroll, contracts from HR and posting details from line managers.
The right technology automatically identifies which employees qualify as posted workers by assessing travel data and allows teams to quickly spot risks or bottlenecks in gathering information.
Workflow and automation tools guide users through the registration process and automatically collect information from different sources across the business so registration documents can be created on time.
This technology-led approach makes sure posted workers are registered on time and can undertake their cross-border work as soon as they’re needed.
For businesses working in Europe, complying with posted worker legislation is important, not only to avoid incurring steep fines, but also to protect one of your company’s most valuable assets – your brand. Utilizing the correct technology led approach will protect your brand with posted worker compliance and will help you retain and attract customers and talent.
You can find out more about Equus’ Posted Worker tools here.
