Vitality Pact Scheme

Who can participate and under which conditions?

The scheme is aimed at employees who will reach the applicable pension age within five years. Only the employees who have worked with the employer (Radboud University Nijmegen) continuously for at least the past 10 years will be considered.

Extension of working hours within a year before participation will not be taken into consideration for participation in the scheme.

Additionally, participation in the scheme is only possible after taking all saved leave entitlements within the multi-year savings model. Any remaining holiday allowance will have to be reduced to a maximum of one year’s holiday hours to which the employee is entitled based on their original employment (232 hours for full-time employment).

To prevent the fiscal occurrence of the Early Retirement Scheme (Regeling voor Vervroegde Uittreding (RVU)), a minimum of 50% of the scope of the employment at 58 years of age, and 50% of the scope of the employment in the calendar year preceding participation must be maintained.

Employees with a partial inability to work can participate in the scheme as long as this is permitted in the re-integration obligations. This means that the employees can only participate for the part that they are able to work. If a participant becomes completely unable to work, participation can be ended prematurely at the request of the employee. In the case of long-term inability to work, participation in this scheme will always end after nine months if that inability persists, and the employee will return to the scope of employment immediately preceding their participation in the scheme.

Staff members participating in the now-expired Senior Scheme 2006 (Seniorenregeling 2006) from the CAO cannot participate. Participants in local senior employees schemes ('Voluntary Job Adjustment Scheme' and the 'Senior Staff Plus Scheme for Employees in Physically Demanding Jobs') can switch to the Vitality Pact. This does not involve participating in multiple schemes, but switching from one scheme to another.

Benefits related to salary

The pension accrual basis will be maintained at 100%. The staff member will pay the complete employee part of the pension premium. All salary-related benefits and payments are based on 85% of the salary with the 4-day variant, and 70% with the 3-day variant (also income for social security contributions (SV-loon). For employees classified up to scale 7, the percentages are 90% for the 4-day variant and 80% for the 3-day variant. The anniversary bonus is an exception to this.

Other conditions and consequences

When the scheme leads to an actual availability of less than 3 days a week, the employer may, if important for the fulfilment of the position, agree with the employee to organise the free time on a yearly basis instead of a weekly basis.  This means that an agreement can be reached with the employee whereby more hours or days will be worked per week during busy periods than during quiet periods.

Collective holidays that fall within the working roster of the employee will be deducted from the holiday entitlement.

If, during participation, an employee takes holidays from the remaining leave allowance, it is important that the employee, during these holidays, still actually works at least 50% of the scope of employment at 58 years of age. An exception to this can be made in cases of illness, inability to work, or using holiday allowance allocated for that particular year.

Unless otherwise agreed, any additional income from work or business is only allowed if it was already in place and approved by the employer before the time of participation.

Participation in this scheme can be refused by the employer in cases of considerable company interests or disproportionate increase in workload for the staff member and/or their colleagues. Considerable company interests can be interpreted as problems with security, or rostering, or serious problems in the company management as a result of the reallocation of the released hours, etc. The employer can delay participation until the start of the next academic year at the very latest in cases of serious issues with company management as a result of the reallocation of the released hours.

Employer and employee will make timely agreements about a proportional reduction of duties and transfer of duties. Agreements about the rostering of working hours will be recorded in writing and re-confirmed annually.

Concurrence with part-time pension

A staff member participating in the Vitality Pact Scheme can, if desired, also take up a part-time pension, without working fewer hours for it. The employee can therefore supplement the lower salary of the Vitality Pact Scheme with a part pension payment. However, this means that the pension to be paid will be decreased, because part of it will be disbursed sooner. At the same time, the employee will pay 100% of their pension contributions which means that the consequences of the part-time pension are not as pronounced. The employee can calculate which consequences utilising part-time pension will have for them personally at mijn.abp.nl.

How to register?

Actual participation is possible until the end of the employment contract, or when the pension age has been reached.

Registration for participation must be submitted in writing by the staff member to the supervisor at least three months before the desired start date. The supervisor will respond within four weeks of receiving the request. The supervisor and the staff member make an appointment regarding the specific impact this will have on the work. These agreements are recorded in the 'Interview form when participating in the Vitality Pact'. The completed form will be sent to the HR department.

Information for supervisor: Vitality Pact Scheme participation guidelines