Digital Work Card: Nine Questions and Answers – What changes it brings

Following the announcements of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs for the implementation of ERGANI II and its implementation Digital Work Cardclarifications in the form of questions – answers follow.

1. What is INSTRUMENT II and how is it connected to the Digital Work Card?

ERGANI II is an information system for recording the reality in the labor market. It is an evolution and upgrade of the ERGANI I system that has been operating for some years now, helping to get things in order and for the Ministry of Labor to have a lot of information at its disposal for policy making and more effective controls.

ERGANI II will be like a CT scan of the labor market as the basis for the operation of the Digital Work Card. The Digital Work Card will be a tool to prove the arrival and departure of the employee from his job as a guarantee for the respect of his schedule.

The first phase of the implementation of the Digital Work Card concerns the banks and supermarkets that employ over 250 employees. The specific companies must in the period 1 – 30 June to complete the inventory of their employees in ERGANI II and to record the data of employment relationship and working hours of their employees (working hours per week, 5-day or 6-day work, fixed or changing hours, etc. .) The Digital Work Card will be applied in the same sectors from July 1. The inventory of employees (data of employment relationship and working hours) for the other sectors of the economy will be done in the period from 1.10.2022 to 31.11.2022.

2. What changes in relation to the existing ERGANI system?

ERGANI II leads to a radical upgrade of the possibilities of recording the programming as well as the real working time, therefore also the possibilities of control by the competent authorities. Specifically: the scheduling of the work and the information about the real start – end times of the work will be entered digitally and will be available to the employees through the application myErgani mobile app and in the form of a calendar. Today, unstructured text and attached files are submitted with a limited possibility of informing the employees, who only have the opportunity to see the employer’s statements afterwards.

Also with ERGANI II all types of licenses will be recorded for the first time (today only the regular license is declared a posteriori). Above all, with the Digital Card, the real working time will be recorded for the first time, upgrading the possibilities of controlling and keeping the working hours.

3. How does the Digital Card ensure the observance of working hours, the payment of overtime and the treatment of declared / undeclared work?

The Digital Card introduces two important security valves that facilitate controls and make them automatic and objective, which are:

a. The start of work will be automatically notified to the ERGANI II system. The same with the ending.

b. The auditor will know before visiting a workplace which employees should be there.

Employees who are at work while their departure has been announced or their arrival has not been declared will be identified immediately and easily by the auditors. This is how e.g. the phenomenon of an employee being registered for 4 hours while working 8 hours. The foundations are being laid to put an end to this unacceptable phenomenon.

In addition, employees will be able to use the records of the digital Work Card, to prove their employment in the Courts. They will even have the right to issue a payment order based on the details of the digital work card, as this will provide full proof of the time they were actually employed.

4. Why is the Digital Card not applied now in all sectors of the economy?

The Digital Work Card is a flagship reform of great importance, affecting hundreds of thousands of employees. It is obvious that interventions of this scale must be tested in practice before being extended to general application, while each branch has its own peculiarities. The implementation of the Digital Work Card starts from large companies and from market sectors that already use timekeeping systems for employees, usually electronically.

These companies have the ability to easily and directly connect their systems with ERGANI II, utilizing a special programming interface developed for this purpose. However, it is a commitment of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs that no company regardless of size, number of employees and industry and no employee will be excluded from the application of the Digital Work Card. The extension of this measure will start from sectors such as security companies, insurance companies, DEKO and industry. The goal is also the next tourist season (2023) to be applied to tourism.

5. What about teleworking and off-site workers?

Control remains based on the indication of working hours. At the moment, it will not be possible for someone to “hit” a card remotely, notifying, for example, from home or from any other place where he works, the start and end times of work. This possibility will exist in the next phase, as the issuance of a Presidential Decree is foreseen, which will define how the data of the communications between the employer and the teleworker will be controlled.

6. How will the digital card work in practice?

When arriving / leaving work, the employee will “click” the card stating the start / end of the schedule. Job scheduling and information on actual start-end times will now be digitally entered into the ERGANI II system and will be available to employees through the myErgani mobile app, as well as through the myErgani web portal (https: // myErgani.gov.gr).

The card can be either in physical form, such as the cards currently used by many companies to record working hours or a digital application (application) on the employee’s mobile phone that will generate a QR code which will be “scanned” by the respective digital business application.

This is exactly the process that was applied for the “scanning” of the certificates of illness, vaccination, etc. The companies that have timekeeping systems will send to ERGANI II the start-end information for each employee. For the rest the information will be transmitted automatically through the application.

7. What is the difference between the timekeeping systems and the cards used by many companies today?

The reform that is the key point for keeping the working hours is the direct, real-time connection with ERGANI II.

Thus, the employment will not be recorded not only in the system of the employer, but at the same time in the system of the Ministry of Labor, in ERGANI II, with the result that it will not be possible to intervene and alter the data from any side.

8. What will be the benefit for employees?

The Digital Work Card is the best guarantee for the respect of working hours and the payment of overtime of the employees. The use of digital technology both for the recording of working hours and for the control by the competent Authorities are guarantees for transparent and objective controls, which guarantee the rights, the schedule, the income and the free time of the employees. The new system is also a guarantee of proof of their employment time before the Courts. It is characteristic that the Digital Work Card was a permanent request of GSEE.

9. What is the benefit of ERGANI II and the Digital Card for businesses?

Undeclared and undeclared work, in addition to employees, also affects law-abiding companies, which face unfair competition from those who violate the law.

The observance of working hours, the payment of overtime, the treatment of undeclared work are factors in restoring conditions of healthy competition in the market while at the same time ensuring the revenues of the insurance system and the budget. The implementation of ERGANI II also reduces (compared to ERGANI I) the bureaucratic burden on businesses and professional accountants as technology has advanced and all new possibilities are being exploited.

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