Labour management in companies involves taking into account a series of legal obligations that must be rigorously complied with in order to improve the working environment, guarantee the sustainability of the company and avoid possible sanctions. As we approach the end of the year, Bové Montero’s Labour Team summarises the main obligations approved in recent years, as well as the possible changes or adjustments expected in 2025 in Spain.
I. CURRENT EMPLOYMENT OBLIGATIONS
1. Occupational Risk Prevention Plan: every company must have an Occupational Risk Prevention Plan designed to protect the safety and health of workers in all aspects related to work.
This plan must include:
- Risk assessment
- Preventive planning
- Information and training
- Emergency response
- Health surveillance
- Consultation and participation
The company must organize the necessary resources to carry out the preventive activity through:
- Internal prevention service: internal organisation of the company dedicated exclusively to the prevention of occupational risks.
- External prevention service: external entities specialised in the prevention of occupational risks, contracted by the company.
- Designated workers: workers of the company who are trained and capable of performing prevention functions.
- Personal responsibility of the business owner: in companies with less than 10 employees, the business owner himself can take over the prevention functions if he has the appropriate training.
2. Registration of working hours: the registration of working hours is a legal obligation for all companies as of 2019, with the aim of ensuring control over the actual hours worked by each employee, preventing labour abuses, and ensuring that workers’ rights are respected.
Companies must keep a daily record of the working hours of all their employees, regardless of their type of contract or employment category.
The register must include:
- The start and end time of the working day.
- Any overtime worked.
The register must be kept available for 4 years, as it may be requested at any time by the Labour Inspectorate.
It must be accessible to both workers and their legal representatives.
In remote working environments, registration remains mandatory. Companies must implement digital tools to record hours worked.
3. Remuneration register: all companies must establish and maintain a remuneration register for all employees, including management and senior executives. The aim is to ensure pay transparency and prevent any gender-based pay discrimination.
This record must include mean and median values of salaries, allowances, and non-wage payments. Data must be disaggregated by gender and distributed according to the following categories:
- Professional group
- Professional category
- Level or position
Workers have the right to access the content of the wage register through their legal representatives. If there is no legal representation, the company must only provide the percentage differences in average pay between men and women, broken down by job classification and type of pay.
By default, the remuneration record must cover the calendar year.
The company must consult the workers’ legal representatives at least 10 days in advance, before the register is drawn up and before any relevant changes are made to the register.
Companies with 50 or more employees conducting pay audits must comply with the following specific requirements:
- Reflect the arithmetic and median averages of jobs of equal value in the company, even if they belong to different occupational classification sections.
- Justify pay differences where the mean or median total pay of one gender exceeds that of the other sex by at least 25%. This justification must be based on objective and non-discriminatory criteria.
4. Equality plan: an organised set of measures that the company implements following a detailed analysis of its internal situation. These measures are designed to ensure that women and men have equal opportunities and are treated fairly in all aspects of employment. The main objective is to eliminate all forms of gender discrimination and to promote a fair and inclusive working environment.
The initial diagnosis must take into account the specificities of the company, such as its size, sector, geographical distribution and workforce composition, in order to ensure that the measures are targeted and effective.
Minimum content to be included in the plan:
- Selection and recruitment procedure
- Professional classification
- Training
- Professional promotion
- Working conditions, including gender pay audit
- Joint exercise of personal, family, and professional rights
- Under-representation of women
- Remuneration
Prevention of sexual and gender-based harassment: a protocol against sexual and gender-based harassment is mandatory.
Companies with 50 or more employees are required to develop and implement an equality plan, as are companies with less than 50 employees if required by the applicable collective agreement or by the labour authority following a sanction or resolution.
These plans must be registered in the Equality Plans Register of the Ministry of Labour and Social Economy. Without this registration, they will not be legally valid.
Negotiation and consultation with workers’ representatives are mandatory at all stages of the plan, from diagnosis to implementation and monitoring.
5. Workplace Harassment Protocol: a tool that includes preventive and reporting measures to prevent and eliminate situations of harassment or mobbing in the company, whatever their nature (moral, sexual or gender-based harassment; degrading, hostile or humiliating treatment; physical violence, etc.).
It is an obligation for all companies, regardless of the size of their workforce.
This must include:
- Definition of terms
- Channels of complaint
- Procedures for action
- Preventive measures
- Sanctions
Implementation by:
- Companies with more than 50 employees: the Workplace Harassment Protocol is part of the Equality Plan procedure. It must be carried out by an equality committee and must be reviewed with the rest of the Equality Plan by the legal representative of the employees.
- Companies with less than 50 employees: a single person can do it without the need for committees, and it must be reviewed and negotiated with the workers’ legal representatives.
Procedure:
a) Designate the committee or person responsible for implementing the protocol:
- Companies with more than 50 employees: training committee made up of 3 persons + 1 alternate
- Companies with less than 50 employees: 1 trainer + 1 alternate
b) Drafting of the protocol:
- Complaints channel + Investigation protocol
- Internal communication with employees
6. Employee data protection: From the collection to the use and storage of information, companies must ensure data privacy and security, while complying with legal principles and respecting workers’ rights.
Companies are obliged to inform employees about:
- What personal information is collected.
- What it will be used for.
- Who will have access to it (in-house or third parties such as agencies).
- How long it will be kept.
The basic principles of data processing:
- Minimisation: Only collect data that is strictly necessary for work purposes.
- Purpose: Use data only for the specific purposes for which it was collected.
- Confidentiality and security: Protect data from unauthorised access.
- Update: Keep information accurate and up to date.
Workers’ rights:
- Access: To know what data is being processed and for what purpose.
- Correction: To correct inaccurate or outdated data.
- Deletion: To request deletion of data when it is no longer needed.
- Objection: To object to the use of your data for certain purposes.
- Portability: To obtain your data in a structured format.
The company can monitor the use of work tools (email, internet, devices), but the company can also monitor the use of the tools (email, internet, devices):
- The employee must be informed in advance.
- Justification on the basis of a legitimate interest.
- Respect for privacy and proportionality.
7. Right to digital disconnection. Digital disconnection is the right of workers not to respond to communications, emails, messages, or other forms of work-related contact outside their working hours, in order to respect their rest time, holidays and private life.
The internal digital disconnection policy must include at least the following elements:
- Specific switch-off times.
- Measures to ensure that electronic communications do not interfere with rest periods.
- Procedures for dealing with emergency situations that may require the employee’s attention outside working hours.
- Means for resolving disputes relating to digital disconnection.
8. Whistleblowing channel: aimed at ensuring a confidential and secure means for employees to report irregularities, illegal behaviour or breaches of regulations within the company.
All companies with 50 or more employees are required to have an internal complaints channel. Public and private entities operating in specific sectors, such as financial services or anti-money laundering, are also obliged, regardless of the number of employees.
Characteristics of the complaints channel:
- Confidentiality: the identity of the complainant and the parties involved must be protected.
- Accessibility: the channel must be accessible to all employees and third parties related to the organisation (suppliers, customers, etc.).
- Security: implement measures to prevent unauthorised access and ensure secure storage of information.
- Multi-channel platform: it can be digital, telephone or face-to-face, but must ensure anonymity if requested by the complainant.
Appointment of a channel manager: the company must designate an independent person or entity (internal or external) responsible for handling complaints.
Protection against retaliation:
Prohibit any action that harms the complainant as a result of the complaint made.
Provide support measures, such as legal and psychological counselling, if necessary.
Registration and monitoring:
- Maintain a secure and confidential register of complaints received.
- Set deadlines for follow-up and resolution.
II. NEW LABOUR MEASURES FROM 2025
1. Set of planned measures for the real and effective equality of LGTBI people:
These planned measures are mandatory for companies with more than 50 employees and apply to temporary agency workers during periods of service provision.
As a general rule, companies will have to set up the special negotiating body no later than three months after the entry into force of the Royal Decree approved today. In the absence of a collective agreement, the period for negotiation with the workers’ legal representatives will be six months.
The minimum content of the measures must include:
- Equal treatment and non-discrimination clauses with express reference not only to sexual orientation and identity but also to gender expression or sexual characteristics.
- Access to employment: training, especially for those involved in selection procedures, with clear criteria to ensure adequate procedures.
- Professional classification and promotion: with objective criteria and with guarantees of a professional career on equal terms.
- Training, awareness-raising and language: training plans will include specific modules on the rights of LGTBI people in the workplace, with special emphasis on equal treatment and opportunities and non-discrimination. Training will be provided to all employees.
- Diverse and inclusive environment: the heterogeneity of the workforce will be promoted.
- Permits and social benefits: they will take into account the reality of LGTBI diverse families, spouses and unmarried partners, guaranteeing access to permits, social benefits and rights without any discrimination whatsoever. All workers shall be guaranteed the equal enjoyment of any leave provided for in collective agreements or collective bargaining agreements for attending medical consultations or legal proceedings, with special attention to transgender people.
- Infractions and sanctions for behaviour that violates workers’ sexual freedom, sexual orientation and identity, and gender expression shall be included, where appropriate, in the disciplinary system set out in collective agreements.
2. Salary transparency: companies advertising job vacancies to recruit candidates will have to disclose in advance what the salary for the job will be, regardless of the candidate’s profile. Employers will have to make available to their employees the criteria they use to determine workers’ pay, pay levels and pay progression.
Spain must implement the European Equal Pay Directive, which entered into force on 6 June 2023, which must be transposed into Spanish law by 7 June 2026.
3. Solidarity contribution: from January 2025, a solidarity contribution will be introduced to strengthen the pension system. This measure will apply to salaries exceeding the maximum contribution base.
This contribution will be determined on the basis of the excess of earned income over the maximum contribution base set in the general budgets for each year:
- A 0.92% increase in the contribution for income between the maximum contribution base and 10% above it.
- A 1% increase in the contribution for income between 10% and 50% above the maximum contribution base.
- A 1.17% increase in the contribution for income over 50% above the maximum contribution base.
This percentage will increase by 0.25 percentage points each year until 2045.
The solidarity contribution will be shared between the company and the employee in the same proportion as the common contingencies.
For the time being, the self-employed are exempt from paying the solidarity contribution.
4. Reduction of working hours: from January 2025, the maximum working week is expected to be 5 hours, with the aim of improving work-life balance, though this is still pending imminent approval.
Companies will have six months to implement this reduction.
The Bové Montero team is at your disposal to clarify any doubts you may have and to help you in the comply with the aforementioned obligations.
