Employment Services in Austria Case Study

Introduction

Mauve’s solutions support organisations of every size and industry in a huge variety of different functions; in the very beginning, however, our services focused on assisting individual technical contractors with employment and payroll solutions for overseas assignments. Today, Mauve continues to provide a personal support service to these individual independent contractors, allowing them the security and flexibility to accept offers of work in previously inaccessible locations. Dr Cristian Chitu, a Test Pattern Development Engineer originally from Romania but resident in Austria, turned to Mauve when he received a six-month contract of work in Austria from a UK-based recruitment agency.

The Challenge

Although contractor work is appealing to individuals with certain skillsets due to the flexible, short-term nature of the work and the ability to cherry-pick interesting new projects, doing so as a self-employed individual can be a daunting and risky prospect. Extremely familiar with the Austrian system due to his local residency, Dr. Chitu had some concerns;

“Before having my first phone call with the recruiter, I started to collect information about being self-employed and one critical thing came out about access to the unemployment service in Austria which is only granted after five years of contributions. This was not good to me, and therefore our first phone call resulted in the suggestion of using a payroll company.”

On the recruiter’s recommendation, Dr. Chitu’s case was passed to Annette Ord, Global Sales Manager at Mauve Group, who began the process of delivering a bespoke solution to suit Dr. Chitu’s individual requirements. The assessment was complex; the end client required Dr. Chitu to be paid an hourly rate, and as a result Annette and the team at Mauve had to develop a calculation converting this hourly rate into the monthly salary necessary to place Dr. Chitu on a local Austrian payroll.

Local payroll was essential to Dr. Chitu, as it allowed him access to the Austrian social security system and all the protection and benefits of a contract of employment; in turn this afforded him with confidence, peace-of-mind and job security. As Dr. Chitu said, “I do not know whether Annette realized that my future was in her hands, but definitely ‘mission impossible’ became ‘mission possible’ through her commitment.”

The Solution

Dr. Chitu was employed by Mauve’s UK Company which has a registered payroll in Austria, remitting the relevant tax and social security to the authorities on his behalf. Mauve also provided Dr. Chitu with a contract of employment and a designated contact person for any payroll and employment queries from Dr. Chitu himself, the recruitment agency and the end client.

Through liaison with the recruitment agency and the Mauve contracts, payroll and accounts departments, Annette was able to develop a mutually-agreeable solution that met Dr. Chitu’s needs whilst also ensuring total compliance and the security of local payroll in Austria within roughly 3 weeks of the initial contact. With a strong collaborative team behind him, Dr Chitu’s transition onto his new contract was smooth, stress-free and efficient, enabling him to focus wholly on work and delivering the project to the best of his ability.

“Within the six months of the contract, I never walked alone having you beside me as a team of professionals. I felt really good, being part of the community, and for this reason I am grateful to all of you; including those who worked for me in the background without knowing their names. We managed together to accomplish a successful period of work and this is actually all that matters to me.”

Dr. Cristian Chitu