Closing a Belarusian Team Responsibly: Outplacement for EOR and HTP Employees

Most of what we write about is hiring. This post is about the other end of the process, when a company has to close its team in Belarus. A client project may have ended, a product may be shutting down, or the work may be moving to another country. In each case the people on the team are entitled to what the law guarantees them, and most of them will start looking for a new job the week they hear the news.

How a closure goes depends on how the team is employed and on how much help people get between the day they receive notice and their last day. Below we cover the legal minimum, a rough budget, and the outplacement support that works well in the Belarusian market.

Two ways a Belarusian team is usually employed

Foreign companies usually employ engineers in Belarus either through an EOR or through a legal entity of their own, which is often a resident of the Hi-Tech Park. The steps look quite different in each case.

A team employed through an EOR

If your engineers work for you through an employer of record, the EOR is their legal employer. It issues the notices, signs the dismissal orders, pays the final settlement and deals with the authorities. What you owe comes from the EOR agreement, which usually says that the client covers notice and severance costs when it ends the service. Read the termination clause before you tell anyone.

The EOR stays in business after your team leaves, so legally it is reducing its staff. This matters because some employees can’t be dismissed in a staff reduction at all, as we explain below.

A team employed by your own HTP company

If you set up your own company and joined the park, you are the employer and the whole process is your responsibility. Closing the team may mean liquidating the company or keeping it open for a while with fewer people. A liquidation and a staff reduction follow slightly different rules, and there are questions specific to the park as well, such as withdrawing from residency and dealing with non-compete agreements. Our HTP consulting team can help with the residency side.

In practice, responsibilities are usually split like this:

Task	Team employed through an EOR	Team employed by your own HTP company
Legal employer	The EOR	Your company
Notices and dismissal orders	The EOR’s HR team	Your HR team or a lawyer
Notifying the employment service	The EOR	Your company
Severance and final pay	Paid by the EOR, usually recharged to you	Paid by your company
Residency and non-competes	Not affected	Leaving the park, releasing people from non-competes
Outplacement	Arranged by you, the EOR or both	Arranged by your company

What Belarusian law requires

The rules for a staff reduction and a liquidation are set out in the Labour Code of Belarus. Each employee has to receive a written warning at least two months before the dismissal date, and a collective agreement can make that period longer. During those two months people keep working and keep receiving their salary.

In a staff reduction, the employer also has to offer any suitable vacancies it has before dismissing someone. When a whole team closes, this rarely changes the outcome, though an EOR with other clients sometimes has open roles that fit.

Severance is at least three months of the employee’s average earnings. The amount depends on what each person actually earned, so on senior engineering salaries it adds up quickly. As GRATA’s overview of termination rules points out, a collective agreement or company policy can set a higher amount.

If the employee agrees in writing, the employer can end the contract before the notice period is over and pay compensation for the time that is left. Many people prefer this, especially if they already have an offer. The employer also has to tell the local employment service about the dismissals two months in advance, or three months for a mass layoff, and notify the trade union if there is one.

Some employees can’t be dismissed in a staff reduction. They include pregnant women, women with children under three, and single parents raising children under fourteen or a disabled child under eighteen. People also can’t be dismissed while on sick leave or vacation. In a full liquidation most of these restrictions no longer apply. If someone on an EOR team is in a protected group, talk to the EOR early, because the agreement may say who pays to keep that person employed.

On the last day, the employer pays everything owed, including compensation for unused vacation, and hands over the labour book. A payroll provider can calculate the final settlement and prepare the reports that go with it. Fixed-term contracts, which are common in Belarus, have their own rules on early termination, so ask a lawyer to check them, along with the formal steps of a liquidation.

Budgeting for a closure

Most of the cost is set by law, so it can be estimated early. Take a senior engineer earning 15,000 BYN a month. Two months of notice cost 30,000 BYN in salary, and severance adds at least 45,000 BYN, which comes to around 75,000 BYN per person before unused vacation and employer contributions. For a team of ten senior engineers, that is roughly 750,000 BYN.

Average earnings for these payments are based on what the employee was actually paid, including regular bonuses, so they can be higher than the base salary in the contract. For other levels, our IT salary benchmarks for Belarus give typical pay by seniority.

Compared with these statutory payments, outplacement costs very little. A few sessions with a recruiter and some extra months of health insurance are usually a small percentage of the severance bill.

For an HTP resident, keeping people on through the notice period is also cheaper than for an ordinary employer. Residents pay social contributions only on the part of each salary up to the national average wage, which Belstat publishes every month.

What outplacement includes

Outplacement is the help a company gives departing employees to find their next job. In larger markets it is often bought as a package from a specialist firm. In Belarus, where the IT community is fairly small and a lot of hiring goes through personal contacts and recruiters, the most useful parts are practical ones.

CVs and interview preparation

Engineers who have spent several years at one company often haven’t updated their CV for a long time. A session with a recruiter on the CV and LinkedIn profile, and a conversation about what employers currently ask in interviews, is easy to arrange and helps people get responses sooner.

Introductions to employers

This is usually the part that helps most. With each person’s consent, a recruiter can share profiles with companies that are hiring, or introduce several people from the same team to one employer. Competition for IT jobs in Belarus has been high for the last few years, and candidates who come through a recruiter tend to hear back faster. Our IT recruitment team does this for clients who are closing teams, and some of the companies we work with have hired small groups of engineers who already work well together.

References and time for interviews

Written references from team leads are useful, and so is a manager who agrees to take reference calls after the company has closed. Many employers also give people a paid day each week during the notice period to attend interviews, so they can look for work openly.

Equipment, insurance and other extras

Some companies let people keep their laptops, extend health insurance for a few months after the last day, or pay a bonus above statutory severance to everyone who stays until the agreed end date. None of this is required by law, but it makes the last weeks easier for the team.

Telling the team

We recommend telling the whole team at the same time, ideally on a call with a senior manager, and holding individual meetings the same day or the next morning. Each person should leave their meeting with the written notice, an estimate of their payments and the name of someone to contact with questions. Nobody should find out from an accountant or by losing access to a system.

Explain the reason and the timeline plainly, and don’t promise to hire people back unless you’re sure you will. Our HR consulting specialists can prepare the notices and the plan for these conversations.

A typical closure timeline

For a team on standard contracts, the process usually takes a little over two months. Two to four weeks before the announcement, check the EOR agreement or company documents, agree the budget, find out who is in a protected group, and prepare the notices and a handover plan.

On the day of the announcement, tell the team, hand over the notices, notify the employment service and start outplacement. During the notice period the team works on the handover while people update CVs and go to interviews, and those who find a job early can leave with compensation. On the last day, everyone receives their final settlement, severance and labour book.

Keeping the work going until the last day

Most closures still need some work done during the notice period, such as shipping a final release, passing systems to another team or archiving code. Find out early which systems only one or two people understand, because those cause the most trouble later.

Accounts and files also need a new owner. In Google Workspace, for example, an administrator can transfer a user’s Drive files to another owner before deleting the account, and the same planning applies to repositories and cloud accounts.

Retention bonuses for the people you need until the very end are common. Put the conditions in writing and pay the bonus on the last day.

Why it’s worth doing properly

The Belarusian IT industry is relatively small. The park has more than 1,000 resident companies and over 60,000 employees, and senior engineers who work with the same technologies often know each other.

People who were treated fairly when their team closed tend to recommend their former employer and come back when it hires again. People who were treated badly talk about it too, and in a market this size the story reaches the next candidates you interview.

Research points the same way. Sandra Sucher of Harvard Business School has found that poorly run layoffs can seriously damage a company’s reputation, and she recommends supporting departing employees with job placement and other help beyond severance.

FAQ

How much notice do employees get in a staff reduction or liquidation?

At least two months, in writing. A collective agreement can make the period longer, and with the employee’s consent the contract can end earlier with compensation.

How much severance does an employee receive?

At least three months of average earnings, paid on the last day together with compensation for unused vacation and any other amounts owed.

Who pays when a team employed through an EOR is closed?

The EOR pays the employees as their legal employer and usually recharges notice and severance costs to the client. The termination clause in the EOR agreement sets out the exact terms.

Can employees leave before the notice period ends?

Yes, with written consent and compensation for the remaining notice. Some employers offer termination by mutual agreement instead. Statutory severance doesn’t apply automatically then, so a fair offer should be at least as good as what the person would receive in a reduction.

Can a pregnant employee be dismissed when a team closes?

Not in a staff reduction. Pregnant women, women with children under three and some single parents are protected from dismissal at the employer’s initiative, except when the employer is liquidated.

What happens to HTP residency and non-competes when we close our company?

A resident can apply to leave the park, and residency ends when the company is liquidated. Many companies also release employees from non-compete agreements in writing so they can take any job. Ask a lawyer to check the wording of each agreement first.

Planning a closure in Belarus

Closing a team is hard for everyone involved, but the steps are well known and most of the costs can be calculated in advance. Companies that plan the legal side early and spend some money helping people find new jobs usually keep their reputation and part ways with people who would work for them again.

If you’re closing or reducing a team in Belarus and would like help with the process or with placing your engineers in new roles, talk to our team.