The company social benefit fund exists to provide financial support to employees of a given company. Of course, the pool of resources accumulated in such a fund is always limited, therefore it is worth thinking about the rules for their distribution in advance. A properly prepared ZFŚS regulations will be helpful in this respect. Pursuant to Art. 3 sec. 1 and 1c of the Act of March 4, 1994 on company social benefits fund, the fund is created by employers employing at least 50 full-time employees as of January 1 of a given year. Employers employing at least 20 and less than 50 full-time employees as of January 1 of a given year create a fund at the request of the company trade union organization. The company social benefit fund is therefore a special pool of funds collected by the employer in order to provide financial support related to satisfying the social needs of former and current employees. In fact, the possibility of granting a social benefit from the fund depends on the amount of funds accumulated on it. Each Company Social Benefits Fund is to a greater or lesser extent limited, i.e. it is not possible to continuously grant social subsidies to all current and former employees. Therefore, it is necessary to develop rules that will help in the distribution of this type of benefits in the most precise way possible. For this purpose, the rules of the fund should be drawn up. The set of rules and recommendations regarding the accumulation and distribution of funds accumulated in the company’s social benefits fund is called the fund regulations. Pursuant to Art. 8 sec. 2 of the Act on the Company Social Benefits Fund, the rules and conditions for using the services and benefits financed from the fund and the principles of allocating its resources for specific purposes and types of social activity are specified by the employer in the regulations determined in accordance with Art. 27 sec. 1 or article. 30 sec. 6 of the Act of May 23, 1991 on trade unions. An employer who does not have a trade union organization agrees the regulations with an employee selected by the staff to represent its interests. The above-mentioned provisions stipulate that the rules of using the company social benefit fund, including the distribution of funds from this fund for individual purposes and types of activity, are determined by the employer in the regulations agreed with the company trade union organization. Granting benefits from the fund is made in agreement with the company trade union organization. Therefore, the necessity to create the Company Social Benefits Fund regulations results from the binding legal regulations and practical needs. Uniform regulations allow for a problem-free decision as to whether in a given case it is possible to provide social support to an employee or a pensioner applying for it. It is worth remembering that the regulations do not have to be drawn up by a professional lawyer – both the employer and members of the company trade union are entitled to do so. Each ZFŚS regulations will be different, because each workplace has a different character, a different number of employees and, finally, different financial possibilities in terms of providing social support. In the case of large enterprises, the regulations may count up to a dozen or even several dozen pages, while in relation to small enterprises they will usually be small. The basic provision, which, however, must be included in each Company Social Benefits Fund regulations, is the indication of the differentiation in the provision of social support. The employer is not entitled to provide assistance to everyone equally, as this would be contrary to the applicable provisions of the Act on the Company Social Benefits Fund. The scope of conditions on which the discussed support depends and its amount depends on the will of the employer and the company trade union organization – the legislator does not impose any ready-made solutions in this respect. In practice, the vast majority of regulations here are based on the income criterion calculated for one member of the applicant’s family – the higher the income, the less likely it is to receive the benefit.

Well-prepared regulations of the Company Social Benefits Fund should be divided into the following parts:

• Legal basis – we refer here to the fact of creating the regulations on the basis of the provisions of the Act of March 4, 1994 on the company social benefit fund;
• Explanation of terms – in this section we define all the terms used in the regulations, eg what is meant by a fund, household income, applicant, employer;
• The subject of the regulations – the subject of the regulations is to determine the sources of financing the fund, the rules and conditions for using the services and benefits financed from the fund and the principles of allocating the fund’s resources for specific purposes and types of social activity, persons entitled to use the benefits and services financed from the fund, the manner of administration fund;
• Write-offs from the fund – specify here the sources of financing the fund, ie where its assets come from;
• Fund administration and allocation of resources – in this section, you should describe who is the administrator of the fund and how the funds contained in it are distributed (eg by preparing an annual budget estimate);
• Entitled to use the fund’s resources – we define here the group of people entitled to submit applications for social support from the fund, in practice these will be all employees and pensioners who worked in a given workplace immediately before retirement;
• Rules for granting aid from the fund – in this part the employer and company trade unions establish precise rules for granting social benefits, including rules for submitting applications, deadlines, rules for responding to requests, procedures related to the form of transferring the funds granted;
• Types of social benefits and the scope of social activity – the employer has the option to divide all the money allocated to social support according to his own categories, eg holiday subsidies, holiday benefits, non-returnable cash benefits, holiday cash benefits, packages for employees’ children;
• Final provisions – in this section we specify the date of entry into force of the Company Social Benefits Fund regulations and the rules for changing them. It is also necessary to put the signatures of the employer and members of the company trade union (or representatives of employees in the company).

Source: https://poradnikprzedsiebiorcy.pl/-jak-utworzyc-regulamin-zfss-w-firmie

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