Timekeeping: overtime and home office - what is changing now
Created: 01/05/2023 10:06 am
By: Alina Schroeder
In the job, the hours worked must be recorded - this is provided for by a new law.
What that means for home office, overtime and breaks.
Frankfurt – In September 2022, the Federal Labor Court decided that employees in Germany must record all their working hours.
Accordingly, employers are obliged to introduce a corresponding system for recording.
This is provided for in paragraph 3 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
The home office, in which a large number of employees have been working regularly since the Corona pandemic, is also affected by the change.
But what are the effects of the obligation to record working hours there and how will overtime, breaks and trust work continue?
Everything important here at a glance.
Obligation to record working hours | |
|---|---|
Decided by: | Federal Labor Court |
When: | September 13, 2022 |
What needs to be recorded: | Beginning, breaks, end including overtime |
Obligation to record working hours: What is changing now in the home office?
As reported by the Federal Statistical Office, almost a quarter of employees were working from home in 2021.
A new record.
Many employers continue to offer mobile working and home office, but here too the working hours must be documented.
The manner in which this is to take place is left up to the employers and takes place after consultation, as reported by fr.de.
On the one hand, so-called stamp systems and time clocks enable digital recording.
If the company does not have any of these systems, employees can, for example, enter the start, breaks and end of working hours in an app or in the classic way in a document and piece of paper.
Hermann Gloistein, lawyer for employment law, informed
mdr.de
about this .
The documentation is made available to the employer so that it can be viewed, but is subject to the strict guidelines of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Obligation to record working hours: Working hours in the home office must also be documented.
(Iconic image) © Uwe Anspach/dpa
Recording working hours for employees: Is trust-based working time still possible?
Most recently, the trend was towards trust-based working hours.
This means that in principle the completion of certain tasks is in the foreground and less the working hours.
This model is specified in the employment contract.
This allows employees to carry out their work flexibly on their own responsibility, often in their home office, without being monitored.
With the introduction of the obligation to record working hours, many employees are now wondering whether this type of work is still possible at all.
But the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs answers that with a resounding yes.
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"Documentation of working hours does not stand in the way of such an agreement," says the ministry's website.
The new specifications of the public-law working time protection only serve "safety and health protection [...] and must already be observed today even with trust-based working hours".
Many employees accumulate overtime every week.
These too must now be recorded.
(Iconic image) © Olaf Döring/Imago
Timekeeping is mandatory: overtime and breaks
According to an analysis by the Compensation Partner agency, more than half of all employees in Germany work more than contractually agreed.
Accordingly, they average around three hours of overtime per week, which is often not compensated for in the absence of documentation.
However, this could now change due to the new case law on the recording of working hours.
If the employment contract does not provide for any provision for overtime, this must be paid or reduced.
This is regulated by the Working Hours Act.
The recording of working hours therefore helps employees to be able to make use of this right.
In addition to the beginning and end of employment, breaks must also be registered.
This includes smoking breaks.
After all, these are not part of the working time and are therefore not remunerated – unless this has been stipulated in the contract.
Recording working hours: Who is exempt from the new regulation?
Managerial employees seem to be exempt from the recording of working hours.
These are also not affected by the German Working Hours Act.
However, this has not yet been finally clarified: The Federal Labor Court has confirmed the judgment of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) with the introduction of the obligation.
The concept of employee under European law also includes executives and executives.
In addition, according to the Working Time Directive, people are excluded from the regulation whose working time cannot be measured and predetermined due to special characteristics.
This includes, for example, doctors in a hospital.
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