Recent amendments to the Employment Contracts Act modernized the organization of working time and on-call time. The category of an employee with independent decision-making capacity has been added.
These are employees earning at least the average gross salary in Estonia, who, based on the nature of their work, shall not work at certain times of the day and who can choose their working hours. An employee with independent decision-making capacity is not subject to the regulation of working time organization, the rules of on-call time, the limitation of night work, or the limitations of daily and weekly rest time. Also, the compensation procedure for work done at night and on public holidays does not apply to them. However, the rules regarding the duration of working hours also apply to such an employee, i.e. a full-time or part-time agreement, and overtime regulation applies. In order to become an employee with independent decision-making capacity, the parties must enter into a written agreement in the employment contract or its annexe. The parties may cancel the agreement at any time with 14 calendar days' notice.
The amendment to the on-call time regulation concerns employees whose duties ensure the continued functioning of information and communication technology services, infrastructure, and information security. While the possibility of using daily and weekly rest time must usually also be guaranteed for on-call time, in the case of the above-mentioned employees, the parties can agree not to apply the rest time limitations.
By Kristi Sild, Partner, Lextal
