What is company use?

Verified 20 June 2024 - Directorate for Legal and Administrative Information (Prime Minister)

The use of company is an advantage granted freely and in repeated by the employer to its employees, without being required to do so by law, collective agreement or contract of employment. What are the criteria for a use? Can the employer delete or change a usage? What are the consequences? What if the employer does not use company? We present you the different information to remember.

Use is repeated practice of the employer indicating his will to confer certain benefits on employees company. Examples include the payment of a special premium or the granting of additional leave.

In order to be recognized as a practice, this practice must meet the following 3 criteria :

  • General, i.e. it must be granted to all personnel or to one category of personnel (maintenance workers, for example)
  • Consistency, i.e. awarded on a regular basis (e.g. a premium paid for several years)
  • Fixation, which implies that it is determined according to precise rules (a premium whose calculation method is defined and fixed in advance with objective criteria for example)

Usage is set up without any special procedure by the employer and is not the subject of a written statement.

Example :

A year-end bonus of a fixed amount or method of calculation, granted to all staff every year for 5 years, is a company practice.

Yes, the employer may delete or modify a use. That's what we call the denunciation of use. The employer does not have to justify its decision.

The following procedure must be followed:

  • Inform the Social and Economic Committee (ESC), where applicable, the nature and date of application of the deleted or modified benefit
  • Inform each employee individually concerned by a simple or registered letter (a poster, a briefing, the circulation of an internal memo are not enough)
  • Adequate notice must be given to enable dialog and leave room for possible negotiation

Example :

The employer wishes to delete a supplement of 13e month paid in December. In May, he informs each employee individually and in June he informs the employee representatives.

If the employer has informed the ESC: titleContent and employees individually by observing a sufficient period of time, the employees can no longer claim the maintenance of the advantage which the employer had previously granted them.

The whistle-blowing procedure (informing the EESC where it exists, informing employees individually, respecting a warning period) must be respected, even if the employer and employees agree to abolish or modify the use in question.

Use is binding on the employer.

If the rules of denunciation of use are not respected, the use of company shall continue to apply and the employee may ask the employer to keep him.

A document template is used to claim that it is retained:

Claiming the continuation of an irregularly deleted company usage

The employee requesting the application of a usage must prove its existence.

It can do so by any means: testimonies of other employees, salary slips, posting in the company for example.

The employee may also directly enter the prud'homme council in the event of a dispute with the employer.

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