One in ten Belgian SMEs (up to 250 employees) has already decided to grant the new corona premium of maximum 500 euros this year. Just over four in ten (43.2 percent) will not do so. This is apparent from the quarterly employment survey commissioned by HR service provider SD Worx among 615 SME company managers and personnel managers.
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Companies that have achieved good results during the corona crisis can award a maximum of 500 euros corona premium from 1 August, in the form of consumption vouchers. The premium comes on top of the maximum wage increase of 0.4 percent on top of the private sector index that the government set earlier this year, after the social consultations about the wage standard came to nothing.
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The SMEs that will not award a corona premium do so because there is no financial scope (22 percent) or because they already provide other extras (21 percent). One in three SMEs does not know yet, one in seven (15 percent) is waiting to see what the sector will do. According to SD Worx, a third of SMEs are convinced that the premium contributes reasonably to (very) much to attracting and retaining staff.
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Strategic advisor SME at SD Worx Annelies Rottiers says it is logical that many SMEs are still waiting to see what the sector will do. “In principle, the award is made via a collective labor agreement, concluded either within the sector or the company, or at least via an individual written agreement. So a company can in principle already make the decision to award this corona premium at company level. But it is now also the sector’s turn to look at this at sector level during the sector negotiations,” she says. “We therefore recommend waiting with the award at the company level, because the sectoral negotiations have not yet started. Hopefully we will know more in September.”
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