Social Law
All employers in France are faced with a number of pressing obligations under the labour laws. But the firm evolves in a fluctuating world…
To remain competitive, it must adapt its workforce, both from a quality and quantity point of view, to the technological and economic developments of its markets.
To make the firm’s human resources develop rapidly and efficiently, within a context of optimal legal employee protection, is the major challenge of employers in France…
Work contracts
Agreements at company level and practices
Employee representation
Principle of equal opportunities within the firm
Employee protection
Manager’s status
Management of jobs and skills
Optimisation of labour costs
Dismissal, reduction, reorganisation of the workforce
Outsourcing
Restructuring, mergers, acquisitions
International employee mobility
Work contracts
- determination of the most appropriate type of contract: fixed or permanent term, full time or part time, aided contracts …
- drafting of the various relevant clauses to be provided for: non-competition, mobility, place of work, trial period…
- formalities connected with recruitment
- alterations to the labour contract during the work relation
- breach of the work contract: resignation; individual dismissal, mass redundancy, personnel, economic redundancy; negotiated departures and transactions; nullity; job/pension cumulation
- negotiations in view of the departure of managers and senior managers
- golden parachute
Agreements at company level and practices
- determination and analysis of the applicable collective labour agreements and understandings
- preparation, negotiation and conclusion of agreements; questioning and termination
- company rules, regulations and implications
- practices: legal status and effects
- charters (computers, protection of privacy, ethics…): legal status and effects
Employee representation
- setting up of staff representatives, works council, Committee for Health & Safety at Work and relations with these bodies;
- professional elections
- protective status of staff entrusted with a mandate
- sector, rights, missions and means of the Staff Representative Bodies
- negotiation with the labour force and management
- offence that prevents or hinders a union to carry out its normal duties
Principle of equal opportunities within the firm
- equal opportunities for men and women
- wage parity
- non discrimination
Employee protection
- setting up of the company insurance coverage mechanisms and company provident fund, verification of their compliance with the new legal obligations
- « supplementary » pension, according to the General Tax Code: pension with determined benefits, supplementary pension with specified contributions
- industrial injury
- occupational disease
- URSSAF inspections
Manager’s status
- choice of the managerstatus, corporate powers, organisation of power within the firm
- setting up of delegations of powers and sub-delegations
- civil and criminal liability
- defence of the manager accused when social problems arise (safety at work, offence preventing or hindering a union to carry out its normal duties, non-declared work, harassment…)
- managers becoming executives
- negotiation of the terms of departure of the managing executive
Management of jobs and skills
- implementation of the legal mechanisms for accompanying job management
- legal management of the assessment
- mobility plans
- career management
- forward planning of the workforce
- lifelong professional training: employer’s obligations, training scheme, validation of achieved results …
Optimisation of labour costs
- analysis of the wage structures: fixed and/or proportional salary, evolution of the proportional part, related to performances, so that it is as high as possible
- search for the best adapted types of contract, especially by using those giving rise to lower social security contributions
- examination of the mechanisms for the reimbursement of expenses and social security contributions related to them, so as to improve the global cost
- study and setting up of the unearned remuneration mechanisms, therefore without social security contributions: profit-sharing, with its usual effects, company savings scheme, PERCO, PERP…
- employee shareholding: stock options, free allotment of shares
Dismissal, reduction, reorganisation of the workforce
- analysis of the reorganisations of workforces: how many, on which sites, how soon?…
- calculation of redundancy costs: legal costs, accompanying measures, Job Preservation Plan, outplacement…
- determination of the procedures to be implemented depending on the size of the firms and the number of employees concerned
- intervention of staff representative, consultation of the Works Council
- preparation of the documents to be handed over to the Works Council
- representations to the public authorities
- preparation of the Job Preservation Plan: agreement on the method, preparation of the legal documents (economic note and reorganisation plan, preservation plan and outplacement measures)
- setting up of an outplacement cell
- drafting, if necessary, of individual transactions
- management of any disputes
Outsourcing
- determination of the form of recourse to the most relevant labour outsourcing
- transfer of activity: L122-12
- risk situations: individual wage bargaining, illicit lending of labour …
Restructurings, mergers, acquisitions
- social audit, audit of social risks
- organisation strategy optimising the social aspects
- reorganisation, reduction of the workforce
- harmonisation of social policies between the various units
International employee mobility
- audit of the global remuneration packages existing for the employees already impatriated, recommendation of optimization
- analysis of the situation of the employee to be impatriated, so as to choose the best adapted social security coverage
- fixing of the global amount of remuneration to be granted to the employee, taking into account the differences between the countries of origin and the host country (cost of living, amount of income tax…)
- analysis of the various elements of remuneration in view of benefitting from tax breaks
- social and tax optimization allowing the reduction of the cost for the firm, while guaranteeing the same “net in pocket” for the employee
- setting up of systems limiting the tax cost for the employee accomplishing short missions abroad
- formalisation of agreements by a work contract, to benefit by advantages and/or exemptions
