How to save on employee costs? Complete guide

The cost of employee personnel represents one of the main items in the budget of companies and professionals.
The value in question is given by the sum of a series of elements, such as gross wages; Social security and welfare contributions paid by the company; Inail premiums and contributions, always paid by the company; Other contributions due to bilateral bodies and/or supplementary healthcare funds, based on what is regulated by collective agreements, be they national, territorial or company agreements.
Added to all this are the so-called "accruals", represented by remuneration elements or workers' rights which accrue in each pay period, unless they can be used at a later time than they themselves accrue.
The following categories fall into the aforementioned category: Holidays; Paid leave governed by collective bargaining, for example leave to replace holidays abolished by law (so-called «ex-holiday» leave) and leave to reduce working hours («ROL» leave); Other types of permits, other than those mentioned above, covered by collective bargaining; Compensatory rest periods following provisions in the «Hour Bank»; Additional monthly payments, such as thirteenth and possible fourteenth.
The employer who needs to reduce the impact of personnel costs on its financial statements can act on one or more of the elements mentioned.
Let's analyze the issue in detail.
How to save on employee costs? Complete guide Promote the use of holidays Promote the use of leave Take advantage of social security contributions Adopt overtime reduction policies Promote the use of holidays During each pay period, which corresponds to the accrual of a monthly portion of the aforementioned accruals, the cost of staff increases since, as in the case of holidays, the cost of the previous month's installment is added to the cost of the current month's salary and so on.
Let's assume that the employee accrues a total of 165 hours of holiday during each year.
Consequently, in each monthly pay period, the interested party accrues 13.75 hours of holiday which, if not taken, are added to those of previous months.
The 13.75 hours of vacation, being paid, represent a cost for the company.
On the contrary, the cost in question decreases if the holidays are taken.
For the reasons mentioned, the employer can obtain a reduction in personnel costs thanks to a policy aimed at reducing the number of hours/days of holidays accrued and not taken.
An approach of this kind has the triple advantage of: Reducing the weight of holiday accruals in determining the cost of employee personnel; Facilitate the employer in respecting the deadlines imposed by the law for the use of holidays, so as to avoid the risk of incurring administrative fines and/or requests for compensation for damages by workers; Allow employees to take holidays, so as to recover the psycho-physical energy spent in carrying out their work and also dedicate themselves to the needs of family and social life.
read also Pay slip bonus February 2024, all the benefits that increase the salary Promoting the use of leave For the reasons just described with regard to holidays, the employer can obtain a reduction in personnel costs thanks to the use of leave by employees employed workers.
Unlike holidays, for which the obligation to take them applies, permits can, on the contrary, be paid in the paycheck (so-called "monetization").
In this way the employee obtains a gross sum which increases the net paycheck but at the expense of the possibility of being absent for the hours of leave subject to monetization.
The payment of permits (and possibly hours of compensatory rest belonging to the «hours bank») in the paycheck in any case takes place following a written request from the employee himself, signed for receipt and acceptance by the employer.
Taking advantage of contribution benefits Contribution benefits are a tool that the legislation uses to encourage the hiring of certain job categories, otherwise at risk of encountering difficulties in entering / re-entering the world of work.
In fact, thanks to a reduction or total abolition of social security and welfare contributions paid by the company, the objective of the measures in question is to push employers to favor the activation of employment relationships (usually permanent) with the following subjects (just to name a few examples): Under 30; Unemployed people over fifty; «disadvantaged» women; NASpI unemployment benefit beneficiaries; Temporary workers with minor children; Disabled; Beneficiaries of the Inclusion Allowance or Support for Training and Work; Women victims of violence.
Since the reliefs involve a reduction/abatement of one of the major personnel cost items (in quantitative terms) represented by social security and welfare contributions paid by the company, the employer who pays attention to the measures envisaged by the legislation can obtain a non negligible reduction in personnel costs.
read also 8,000 euro bonus Inclusion allowance, who is entitled to it and in which cases Adopt overtime reduction policies When in the introduction we described the items that make up personnel costs, the gross remuneration of employees was placed in first place.
This macro-category includes not only the fixed items of remuneration, normally governed by collective bargaining, which the company is required to recognize in each pay period, but also the variable components of the remuneration itself, linked to the quantity and method of carrying out the service.
This second category includes, among others, the overtime and/or additional items due for the hours worked by the employee beyond the threshold, respectively, of ordinary full-time or part-time working hours, i.e.
in the letter of appointment or in subsequent agreements.
Since overtime/additional hours belong to the cost item of gross salary, a decrease in the hours worked, in the sense of keeping them within the limit of the contractually foreseen working hours, can naturally determine an overall reduction in the cost of employees in the budget.