'Older workers' employment plan: deadline approaching

You either choose to prepare an annual employment plan or use a multi-year plan.

An employment plan can be fully customised for your business. CBA No 104 thus provides for the following areas of action:

• selecting and hiring new employees;
• developing competences and qualifications through training;
• career-development and guidance;
• internal changes to accommodate adapted positions;
• adjustment of working time and working conditions;
• employee's health, removing physical and psychosocial barriers to staying at work;
• systems for recognising competences acquired.

Take the consultation bodies in your company into account. The implementation procedure differs depending on the consultation bodies in your company.

The plan must be submitted to the works council for its opinion. Failing this, present it to:

• the union delegation;
• the Prevention and Protection Committee;
• the employees

A two-month period then starts, during which employee representatives can give their opinions, and any additional proposals are made. If you do not follow the advice and do not modify your proposal, you must justify your decision within two months.

For companies with fewer than 50 employees and without a union delegation, the plan should be provided for information purposes only.

The count, which determines whether or not more than 20 workers are employed in the company, is performed every four years. The number of employees, expressed in full-time equivalents, declared in the Dimona declaration is reviewed on the first working day of the calendar year in which the employment plan is prepared.

If you did not have 20 employees on 2 January 2021, you were exempt from preparing such a plan. A new count must be performed in 2025, to check whether you can again qualify for such exemption or need to start working on this.

The timing is determined depending on the close of your company’s financial year. This is because the proposed plan must be delivered to the works council within three months of its conclusion. That means for companies where the financial year runs concurrently with the calendar year, 31 March is the deadline.