A. EMPLOYER POLICY REQUIREMENTS
In order to be legally compliant, employers are required by legislation to create and implement a number of employment policies. The following are required statutory policies for an organization that is commencing work in Spain:
- A written occupational health and safety policy which must include 4 preventive specialties: safety at work, industrial hygiene, ergonomics and psycho-sociology and occupational medicine.
- A policy with respect to workplace harassment (including sexual harassment) and a program to implement the policy.
There are a number of policies that employers should create, considered as best practices. These policies will help an organization manage employee relations and mitigate the risk of legal liability in the future:
- Recruitment, hiring and professional development.
- Equality, non-discrimination and reconciliation of work and private life.
- A discipline policy to address employee misconduct and how your organization will respond to misconduct;
- Attendance and leave of absences policies to govern employee expectations for absenteeism and workplace attendance; and
- Policies surrounding the use of employer tools (computer and mobile phone use, internet use, social media, physical tools, etc.) and confidentiality to ensure employees are aware of the expectations surrounding their employment.
- Image and corporate reputation polices, commonly known as Dress Code.
- Best practices and work behaviour polices for the fight against fraud, corruption and behaviour polices for the fight against fraud, corruption and bribery and on the management of conflicts and unfair competition.
While not a policy itself, many employers in Spain decide to put all of the foregoing policies and procedures within a unified employee “handbook” that contains all the information every employee would need in the employment relationship. A Spanish employee handbook would help your organization from operations and human resources perspectives.
Our firm has prepared precedent policies which can be efficiently modified for your organization.
B. EMPLOYEE TRAINING REQUIREMENTS
Employers are required to complete certain training activities. The following is statutorily mandated training that employers must provide:
- ensure that all workers complete basic health and safety awareness training;
- if your workplace contains hazardous material, workers must receive training and instruction on the handling of such material;
- provide workers with information and instruction on the contents of the workplace harassment policy;
C. EMPLOYMENT AGREEMENTS
In Spain, employers are urged to create written employment agreements for all employees. Employment agreements are essential to limit the risk of legal liability and financial exposure in operating the employment relationship or on the contrary, to give voluntary improvements to the employees beyond the Law.
Our firm has prepared thousands of precedent employment agreements. modifying precedent agreements for your organization will be a critical portion of the project.