How to Terminate an employment in Poland?

As usual, employment termination in Poland is subject to the local laws. It is important that the employer stays compliant in the process.

Employment relationship / labour contract under Polish law may be ended through the following reasons:

by mutual agreement of the parties
by termination with notice period (regular termination)
by termination without notice period (disciplinary termination)
upon expiration of the duration period
because the company goes into liquidation

Termination by mutual agreement

In this situation, both employer and employee agree on the terms of the termination then sign a Mutual Agreement (with wet signatures). All conditions of the ending of the relationship should be written in the agreement. Any other agreement made in oral form would be considered void in the view of the law.

Mutual agreement can be done in any situation, short or long seniority, while people are on sick leave or maternity leave for example,… As long as both parties agree on the terms of the agreements, there is no potential limit to make it happen. Mutual termination agreement is often offered by the employers as an alternative for termination with or without notice.

When concluding mutual termination of employment contract in Poland parties usually decide on:

whether the employment relationship will expire immediately upon execution or after certain period of time (future date)
whether the employee will be obliged to work or will be released from work during last days / weeks of work
using outstanding holiday leave or payment of equivalent for unpaid leave
payment of bonuses and other benefits
other payments incl. compensations and employee severance pay (not obligatory but can be made necessary)
obligation of confidentiality and non-compete

The process is to sign the document then the employer just need to make all payments and deliver the labour certificate.

Termination with notice period

This is the regular Termination. In Poland the notice period is determined by law and is statutory which in a way makes it clearer for all:

2 weeks notice – seniority of less than 6 months
1 month notice – seniority of more than 6 months
3 months notice – seniority of more than 3 years

The Termination letter should follow some specific criteria such as below:

Legal	Termination letter shall be made in writing (hard copy with wet signature), or electronic form signed with qualified electronic signature.
Delivery	As a rule the termination letter shall be delivered to the other party in person Exceptionally, the termination letter may be delivered in another form: registered address, email.
Justification	Notices of termination shall include real, specific and understandable justification (this relates in particular to termination indefinite employment contract or disciplinary termination of any type of contact)
Instruction Notice	Notice of employment agreement termination shall include information about the employee’s right to appeal against the termination to a competent labor court.

In the case where employees are protected by Unions and Termination occurs for reasons other than bankruptcy and Liquidation of the company, the employer must inform the union of its intention to terminate a contract concluded for an indefinite period.

An important point is that in Poland, The notice period starts from the 1st of the month following the month when termination was done. So if an employer gives notice on the 20th of February and the notice is 3 months, the notice will actually start from the 1st of March till the 31st of May

While on notice, the employer can force the employee to use all outstanding holidays not taken.

The notice period cannot be shortened in any circumstances. So if the employee resigns and the employer agrees to let them go more quickly, the employer will still have to pay the full notice. Unless the option 1 is taken of a Mutual Agreement.

Severance (redundancy pay) in Poland may be due to the employee only if:

the employee is dismissed under collective dismissals, or
dismissal is individual but made exclusively for reasons other than the employee’s conduct and performance, provided the employer employs at least 20 employees.

Overall Severance Pay is:

Employees with seniority of less than 2 years	1 month salary
Employees with seniority of 2 to 8 years	2 months salary
Employees with seniority of more than 8 years	3 months salary

Termination without notice period

A- Disciplinary termination may only take place if there is a valid reason, so when the employee:

seriously violates the basic duties,
commits an offence during employment, which makes further employment impossible in his / her post, if the offence is obvious or has been established by a final and valid court judgement,
loses his/ her licence required to perform his/her duties connected with a post.

Disciplinary termination does not trigger an obligation to pay severance or notice to the employee. On the other hand, due to the fact that disciplinary termination has immediate effect with regards to contract expiration, it usually triggers an obligation to pay equivalent for unused holiday

Under Polish employment law (Labour Code), there is no legal definition of “valid” or “justifiable” reason. In case of dispute the reason will be evaluated by the labour court. Nonetheless the reasons must be specific, understandable for the employee and real (not of a general nature).

B- Immediate employment termination in Poland due to absence or incapacity to work

This can only be done if:

the illness lasts longer than 3 months (if the employee has seniority less than 6 months); or
the illness lasts longer than the joint period of receiving sick pay from the employer, statutory sickness benefit and rehabilitation benefit for the first 3 months:
- if the employee has seniority of at least 6 months; and/or
- if he/she becomes unfit to work through an accident at work or occupational disease.
absence is justified by other reasons than those provided above and it lasts longer than 1 month.

Upon Expiration of the contract

If the employee has been on a Fixed Term Contract (FTC) and such agreement comes to an end, then the employer does not need to pay severance.

It is still advisable to send an official communication to the employee to remind him/her/them that the contract will not be renewed or extended at the end of the previously agreed period of employment.