Becoming a skilled negotiator: three things you should pay special attention to

When you are employed under one of Finansforbundet's many collective agreements, terms such as holiday, severance terms and access to skills enhancement are negotiated by Finansforbundet on your behalf. 
 
Finansforbundet's political management and experienced negotiators from its secretariat negotiate pay and employment terms for its members.  

Employees under a collective agreement may therefore take it easy as most significant terms are negotiated as part of the collective agreement with Finansforbundet, providing a safety net for the employees.  

You are your own chief negotiator.

But you should pay attention when you become a contract employee, because you will usually be in charge of negotiating a range of terms in your contract yourself and therefore need to know what should be included.  

"Generally, the process from being employed under a collective agreement to becoming a contract employee is not all perks, unless you're a divine negotiator," says Rasmus Nørgaard Høgh who is a senior consultant on Finansforbundet's policy and negotiation team.  

Large companies often have a template of which terms to include in the contract.  

Some companies maintain certain terms from the collective agreement while others take an approach of stripping down your contract to your pay and only a few of the benefits you enjoyed before.

You may, for example, retain your right to the five additional days of holiday which are generally a part of Finansforbundet's collective agreements. 

Read your contract through.

During the negotiation process, you should consider which terms you would like to keep in your contract going forward, and review which of your current terms are being removed.  

Consider carefully how much the terms you lose constitute in Danish kroner, because that is the amount you should preferably be compensated for. This means that you should read the contract thoroughly and have Finansforbundet check it to ensure that it observes the rules of the collective agreement. 
 
Finansforbundet also offers to properly prepare you prior to the negotiation of the contract terms and help you determine the value of the terms you would like the contract to include as well as the negotiation of compensation for the terms that are not part of the contract, says Rasmus.  

1. What happens if you are terminated?    

One of your primary focus areas should be the terms applicable to termination. It will often be less expensive for the company to terminate you than one of your colleagues working under a collective agreement.  

Employees under Finansforbundet's collective agreements will typically, in addition to statutory severance pay, be entitled to severance pay based on length of service. If you are terminated and your length of service exceeds 12 years, your severance pay will constitute several months' pay, determined by age.  

An employee covered by one of Finansforbundet's collective agreements and over 60 years old will, in addition to statutory pay, typically be entitled to six months' extra pay plus 20 months' extra pension contributions. As a contract employee, you will usually only have the Danish Salaried Employees Act to lean on. According to this, you will, after 12 and 17 years, respectively, receive 1 or 3 months' pay. Consequently, the employer must pay a higher amount when terminating an employee covered by a collective agreement.  

Some contract employees receive contract compensation, but that is often only senior-level employees in a company, typically those on senior management level. Therefore, you should check whether your new individual contract includes severance pay.  

If you are leaving a job covered by a collective agreement and your length of service exceeds 12 years, which means you would have received a substantial amount upon termination, you should attempt to have severance pay included in your individual contract.  

It differs from one company to the next whether it is possible, but you should at least try.  

2. How many hours do you work?    

As a contract employee, you are to a greater extent expected to deliver, and at times the demands regarding how many hours you work and when you work may be considerable.  

According to legislation, your work week may not exceed 48 hours over a certain period of time, and you must be able to register your working hours so that you have a tool for assessing how many hours you work.  

According to some employers, contract employees do not need this as they are considered to have independent work organisation to such an extent that they need not register their hours.  

Finansforbundet has a different interpretation, namely that if you cannot register your working hours, you must have full, independent work organisation. Generally, however, no contract employees have that. Consequently, you should be entitled to register your hours to ensure you have a tool to show whether you work too much.  

Therefore, you should attempt to have the right to register your hours and the 48-hour rule included in the contract. Often, you will have to raise this point yourself.  

Alignment of expectations is crucial in this area as you are often expected to work far more hours than your colleagues working under a collective agreement. 

3. Keep special life situations in mind  

An individual contract generally covers fewer benefits than those included in the collective agreement. These may, for example, be paid maternity/paternity leave, the possibility of part-time work for parents with children or senior part-time employment, free-choice bank and care days.  

Therefore, you need to think ahead and have as much as possible included in your contract, because it will be too late when you are suddenly about to become a parent and really need a couple of care days with pay.