Employee Capital Plans as a challenge for employment agencies

As of 1 July 2019, the largest employers in Poland have been covered by Employee Capital Plans (PPK). Therefore, the long-term saving system had to be introduced, among others, by temporary employment agencies, which have one of the largest employees on the Polish labor market. Specialists in law, HR and payroll as well as recruitment at LeasingTeam Group will tell you about the challenges associated with the introduction of PPK in employment agencies.

Key challenges during the implementation and operation of PPK

As Sylwia Kutermankiewicz, acting Director of the HR and Payroll Department, points out, “With thousands of employees and contractors employed, the key factors for proper management of the Employee Capital Plans implementation process will be: adaptation of the HR and payroll system enabling the implementation of the PPK, preparation of documentation and clear provision of information to all beneficiaries of the PPK program.

From the perspective of the LeasingTeam Group, whose staff consists of over 10 thousand employees served per month, the implementation of the program turns out to be quite a challenge. “Although high turnover is natural in employment agencies, when implementing and operating PPK, it creates a lot of additional work in the area of reporting and unregistering new employees,” says Kutermankiewicz. “Therefore, for the largest entities on the market, it is crucial to digitize the flow of documents by adapting HR and payroll systems to support the Employee Capital Plans program,” adds the HR and payroll specialist.

It is also worth remembering that not only the number of foreigners employed by Polish entrepreneurs is growing year by year, but also the range of countries from which they come is dynamically expanding, and thus – the multilingualism of employees. Looking at the implementation of the PPK through the prism of the internationality of the beneficiaries of the program in the agencies, it turns out that the number of documents and messages necessary to prepare is growing exponentially. As our expert Sylwia Kutermankiewicz points out, understandable and transparent preparation of communication in the first stage of PPK implementation is important because it can minimize misunderstandings and significantly reduce the hours needed to explain the rules at a later stage of the process.

ECPs on the line of cooperation between a temporary employment agency and a client

We also asked Anna Kurczewska-Formela, Director of the Recruitment Department from Professional, about the challenges of introducing PPK in an organization. “As a personnel consulting agency, we are obliged to inform an additional group of interested parties about the actions taken, i.e. clients using our staff, on the basis of outsourcing and temporary work,” she noted.

The introduction of PPK in Poland is associated with additional obligations and formalities on the part of employers, and thus with a greater burden on HR and payroll departments or their expansion. It should be remembered that according to the legislator, every 4 years all employees will be automatically joined to the ECP, including those who have previously opted out. The obligation to inform employees about this and to resend the resignation each time rests with the employer.

The introduction of the ECP may therefore be another argument for companies to decide on employee outsourcing and transfer all formalities to the employment agency, while optimizing the costs of HR and payroll services – comments Anna Kurczewska-Formela.

Summary

Employee Capital Plans are a big test of operational effectiveness for employment agencies. This is due to the nature of their business, which assumes the employment of a large number of temporary workers, high turnover and service for people of different nationalities (language aspect).

– Before we decide to sign a contract with a selected temporary employment agency, it is worth verifying how the Employee Capital Plans program has been implemented and whether it is run in accordance with the law. This will tell you a lot about the level of competence and experience of this agency – sums up Klaudia Bylińska, Legal Counsel at LeasingTeam Group.