One situation where a transfer may be appropriate is when it enables your employee to gain work experience in tasks that promote their placement on the open labour market.

In this situation, the employer to whom your employee is transferred is called the user company. The transfer allows the user company to assess the suitability of the person for available tasks without risk to the employer.

Conditions for the transfer

You can submit an application to the employment authority for transferring an employee to another employer. To get permission for transferring an employee,

• the user company must meet the conditions concerning employers for granting a pay subsidy
• the work tasks in the user company must be assessed to meet the requirements for receiving pay subsidy, and
• the user company must pay sufficient compensation for the work performed by the employee, which is at least the difference between the employee’s pay and the pay subsidy.

When you apply to transfer a pay-subsidised employee of yours to another employer, the application must be accompanied by an assurance from the user company that the conditions of the pay subsidy are met.

During the transfer, the amount of the pay subsidy may not exceed the amount that could be granted to the user company if it applied for the pay subsidy itself. The amount of pay subsidy also cannot exceed the amount originally granted to the employer company. Although the general prerequisites for granting pay subsidy apply to the user company, the impact of other subsidies is not assessed for the user company, as the pay subsidy is still paid to you as the actual employer.

Conditions related to the employment contract

When a pay-subsidised employee is transferred, the user company becomes responsible for

• managing and supervising the employee’s work,
• the employee’s orientation and the decision-making on their working hours,
• managing the employee’s occupational safety,
• ensuring that the employee has sufficient professional skills and experience and is suitable for the position,
• providing the employee orientation on occupational safety and health measures and, if necessary, arrangements concerning occupational safety and health cooperation and information as well as occupational health care, and
• monitoring the employee’s possible use of protective equipment.

As the actual employer, you are still responsible for

• the obligation to pay wages and the employer obligations not stipulated by the Employment Contracts Act, such as monitoring annual overtime and organising occupational health care, and
• the obligation to ensure the general implementation of occupational safety, such as ensuring the employee’s professional skills and accident insurance.

The employment relationship of an employee transferred to a user company must primarily be subject to a collective agreement that the employer is bound by, either based on the Collective Agreements Act or general applicability. If, as the actual employer, you are not obliged to comply with any collective agreement in employment relationships, at least the collective agreement binding the user company based on the Collective Agreements Act or general applicability is applied to the employment relationship of the transferred employee.