Bank of hours: what changed with the labor reform and eSocial

Companies with income of up to R$ 78 million, which are part of Group 2, enter the 3rd phase of eSocial from January 2019, where they should start sending periodic events (payroll). This means that it is time to provide information regarding all employee payments, as well as informational events, including the bank of hours that has been changed in the labor reform and needs special attention at this stage of eSocial implementation.

What changed with the labor reform?

Bank of hours is a compensation agreement in which the overtime hours worked in one day are offset with the corresponding decrease of the work journey in another day. After the change in CLT - Consolidation of Labor Laws in 2017, important points were changed.

Today, the bank of hours can be negotiated individually between employee and employer, with the need to be formalized in writing, but without the need for Union mediation. In this negotiation, the bank of hours shall be compensated in a maximum of six months.

For dealings of the bank of hours longer than six months, Union consent is still mandatory.

Unhealthy activities can only count on a bank of hours with the authorization of competent areas of health and safety at work. Before the labor reform, the bank of hours could only be formalized with the approval of the union, which left the negotiation not very flexible.

Recommendation

When observing some decisions of Regional Labor Courts, it was verified that there are judgments invalidating the individual agreement of bank of hours, provided for in the labor reform, without the participation of the union. For this reason, it is advisable to consult the company beforehand.

How does the eSocial bank of hours work?

You need to be careful when reporting periodic eSocial events. These events portray the payroll of the employer and also include moving the hours added or decreased in the bank of hours, as well as the discharge of the balance. Such data must be transmitted to eSocial every month at informative events.

The obligation to inform the bank of hours is new. Before, the government did not have such visibility and therefore companies need to be careful when reporting the data. They must be accurate, as the exposure of companies has grown.

Brief

In practice, when sending information about the payroll, in the 3rd phase of eSocial, companies should send the initial balance, that is, the accumulated hours of each employee, according to the competence, and state each month the additions and balance declines, as well as discharge from the bank of hours, as determined by the eSocial Orientation Document.

Domingues e Pinho Contadores, in addition to performing the services to comply with labor, social security and tax obligations and, also present these records to eSocial, advises companies in the implementation of eSocial through customized training for internal staff of these companies, reviews records already sent, advises improvements in internal procedures for the adoption of best practices in compliance with labor and social security obligations.