One of our employees has an employment contract specifying that her place of work performance is at our two facilities. However, we now want her to work from only one of these facilities and we want to prevent her from freely choosing which of the two facilities she works from. We have informed the employee that it is no longer possible for her to work from the second facility and have requested that, from a certain date, she only works from the address of the first facility. The employee is objecting, claiming that this is a change to her employment contract, which can only be done by a written amendment. However, we have found an older internal regulation, which was communicated to all employees, stating that if an employee’s employment contract specifies multiple addresses as places of work performance, the employer reserves the right to determine which of these locations the employee is to work from. Are we entitled to insist on our notice to the employee that she must work from only one establishment, and if she fails to respect it, issue a written warning for breach of work discipline?
Indeed, the place of work performance can only be altered by an amendment to the employment contract, signed by both the employee and the employer. The reason being that under Section 43 of the Labour Code, the place of work performance is an essential part of an employment contract: “ the place or places of work performance (municipality, part of municipality, or place otherwise determined), or a rule that allows the employee to determine the place of work performance themselves.” Irrespective of whether or not it is an essential part of the contract, the arrangements agreed in the employment contract can only be changed by a written amendment.
The question arises as to whether, in cases where multiple addresses are specified in the contract as the places of work performance, it is necessary to formally amend the contract if the employer requires the employee to work from only one of these locations. In our view, such an amendment is not necessary. We believe that it is primarily the employer who assigns the work and determines how the work is to be carried out. If the employer needs the employee to work from one of those specified facilities, unless the contract explicitly grants the employee the right to choose the place of work performance, the place of work performance is specified by the employer.
We don’t know the details of the employment contract you concluded with the employee. However, if the contract does not contain a provision granting the employee the right to choose their place of work performance, we believe that it is not necessary to have an internal regulation to require the employee to work exclusively at one facility. In our opinion, it is sufficient to inform the employee that, from a certain date, she will be required to work exclusively at one of those facilities. You mention that you have already asked the employee to work at only one address. If you have not already done so, we recommend that you request this in writing, stating that this notification is to be regarded as an instruction from the employer, the violation of which constitutes a breach of work discipline. Should the employee fail to comply with the instruction, you may then issue a written warning for a minor breach of work discipline, indicating that further breaches could result in the termination of the employment contract.
If you also have an internal regulation explicitly establishing your right to designate the facility employees is to work from, you can without any doubts insist that the employee performs their work from that specific facility.
Moreover, if you operate multiple facilities in one city, you can consider specifying only the city (e.g., Trnava) as the place of work performance in your new employment contracts. In an internal regulation, the title of which could be, for example: “Policy for determining the place of work performance in the employer’s facilities“, you can stipulate that if an employee’s place of work performance is specified to be the city of the employer’s head office, the employer has the right to assign employees to work at any facility within that city based on the operational needs of the employer. In the regulation, you could also define detailed rules for assigning the place of work performance. For example, you might state that the employee’s supervisor will inform the employee one week/month in advance of the address of the facility where they would work in the upcoming period. Additionally, it would be appropriate to specify in the regulation that failing to comply with a supervisor’s instructions regarding the place of work performance will be considered a violation of work discipline, with corresponding consequences. This approach gives you the flexibility to notify an employee, whose contract specifies only the city as their place of work performance, which facility you need them to work from, and require them to perform their work from that facility.
It is advisable that the internal regulation is signed by the statutory representative and communicated to employees. This can be done by publishing it in the usual way, e.g. on the company’s intranet, and at the same time by sending a mass email to employees with information on where to access the regulation.
