An amendment to the Labour Code took effect at the beginning of 2021, bringing changes to leave entitlement assessment and significantly changing the entire concept of leave.
Leave will no longer be reduced or partly reduced if the condition of 60 days of work and absence from work for at least 100 days due to certain obstacles to work has been met. Such obstacles to work will now be included in working time up to a maximum of 20 times the fixed (shorter) weekly period per calendar year.
A condition has also been stipulated for including such obstacles to work in working time. Apart from obstacles to work, the employee is obliged to work at least 12 times the (shorter) weekly working time in the year.
Nevertheless, the number of significant personal obstacles to work that are not included in this limit has been increased, and these are included in working time in full:
- temporary incapacity for work, with the exception of incapacity for work due to an occupational accident or disease;
- quarantine;
- taking of parental leave;
- other significant personal obstacles
The aforementioned Act divides all obstacles to the employee’s work into two categories – those included and those not included in the number of hours worked by the employee. Therefore, obstacles to work must be expressed in hours based on the length of the employee’s shift or part of the shift when they occurred.
Leave entitlement in hours is calculated using the following formula:
Hours of leave entitlement are rounded up to whole hours.
Example: An employee whose employer provides 5 weeks of leave, whose weekly working time is 40 hours, and who will take all her maternity leave and start parental leave immediately after the end of her maternity leave will be entitled to a maximum of 23 days and 1 hour of leave (184.61 ≐ 185 hours).
In such a case, the time worked in weeks is 48 weeks (28 weeks for maternity leave and a maximum of 20 weeks for subsequent parental leave).
