In the beginning of operations
- Find out on the TE services site if you can receive subsidy for the employment of employees
- Find out by which collective agreement your cooperative has to be bound. Contact the labor inspectorate from the regional state administrative agencies or visit the Finlex site.
- Sign a written work contract with the employee.
- If the cooperative employs at least two employees for a year or there are at least employees working periodically/randomly during a year, the cooperative has to sign up as an employer paying regular salaries at the Tax administrations’ Employer Register. If you did not file this subscription with the incorporation form, you must do it with the modification form Y4.
- Don’t forget to subscribe the statutory employment pension insurance (TyEL). In some cases the directors are insured as entrepreneurs (YEL). You also have to subscribe an accident insurance and a group life insurance.
- Remember that an employer is required to take care of the statutory staff medical service: contract a communal or private medical center.
- Inform the employee about the staff management registers (law on the protection of privacy in the employment context, 759/2004).
During the operations
- Take care of the working time and salary bookkeeping.
- Pay the salaries on time, usually on the 15th or that last day of the month or at the end of a one-off employment, unless other arrangements are made in the work contract. Give the employee a pay slip indicated the amount of pay and its basis of calculation. If you pay salaries regularly, you have to keep a register of every employee’s salary at each pay day.
- As an employer you are liable to apply the retention on each salary paid and paid remunerations of work, if the person is not enregistered as person liable for prepayment. Report the salary data timely to the Incomes Register and settle the retentions and social security payments every month or quarter to the Tax administration. If the turnover of your company is not more than €100,000 in a calendar year, you can select the quarterly procedure with longer reporting and paying periods either at incorporation or later. The retentions and social security contributions are reported to the revenue register and they are settled on the Omavero service site.
- Remember to apply for a subsidy for the staff medical care costs. The application period is six months from the closing of the financial year.
- Keep the working time and salary books for ten years. If you pay salaries only randomly, keep the data. Any travel bills, pay slips and data must be kept for six years from the end of the payment year.
- Inform the employees about the Pension Insurance company you use.
- Keep essential laws and regulations related to their employment at the disposal of the staff.
- Take care that you have a person in charge of labor protection officer. As an employer, you can charge yourself or designate someone in charge. Report the data to the Center for Occupational Safety, Register of Occupational Safety Personnel.