Estoina: Internal Work Organisation Rules Have Not Lost Iimportance
Email contactCategory: Legal Update
Created: Feb 12 2010 - 13:49
Updated: Feb 12 2010 - 13:49
The new Employment Contracts Act has been in force in Estonia for half a year. The main purpose of the new act is to allow more flexibility in employment relationships. For example, increased flexibility is characteristic of the employer's internal work organisation rules.
Under the previous act, employers could not choose whether to establish internal work organisation rules. If an employer had at least five employees, internal rules were a must. The act set out specific requirements which the internal rules had to comply with. Any deviation from or broader interpretation of what was set out in the act could end in refusal by the labour inspector to approve the rules.
The new act no longer requires establishment of internal rules. This has resulted in a situation where many employers have ceased bringing their internal rules into compliance with the new act and have chosen to do without any internal rules. However, this approach may yield negative results later.
Internal rules may involve anything the employer considers important in organizing work, starting from how to communicate with clients or what the employer's document management procedure is like to describing the procedure for terminating employment contracts. The employer may establish work organisation rules unilaterally. It is important to consider two things: the rules may not contradict laws and if they contradict what is stated in an employment contract, the employment contract prevails. Internal rules can regulate issues that are not specified in the employment contract.
Internal rules may be used if a dispute arises between the employer and an employee. In that case the employer can rely on the rules as evidence that a certain kind of behaviour was expected from the employee. However, an employer with no internal rules in place can only hope that other evidence suffices to prove that the employee failed to behave as expected.
No specific regulation is in place to lay down how internal work organisation rules must be established or amended. Employers have a free hand in deciding how to establish internal rules and change them, if need be. This provides employers with the opportunity to establish the kind of rules that best fit the employer's purpose in the context of constantly changing employment relationships. Any new rules must be introduced to employees. In practice, internal rules are often available on the employer's intranet and amendments are communicated to employees by email.
