Working time and overtime – what every employer should know

What working time means under the Code

Working time is the time during which the employee remains at the employer's disposal at the workplace or another place designated for performing the work. The operative word is "disposal" — not the performance of work itself. Working time therefore includes mandatory training, breaks counted in by statute, and business travel to the extent it falls within working hours.

The basic norm is 8 hours a day and an average of 40 hours in an average five-day working week over the adopted reference period. Exceeding either norm triggers the overtime mechanism — daily or average-weekly.

When overtime is permitted

Overtime is permissible in two situations: where a rescue operation is necessary to protect life, health, property or the environment or to repair a breakdown, and where the employer has particular needs. The second ground is broad, but it does not mean a daily practice — routinely scheduling work above the norm points to poor organisation rather than a particular need.

Premium or time off

Overtime attracts normal remuneration plus a premium: 100% for work at night, on Sundays and public holidays that are not the employee's working days, on a day off granted in exchange for Sunday or holiday work, and for exceeding the average weekly norm; 50% in other cases of exceeding the daily norm.

The alternative is time off. Granted at the employee's request, it matches the number of overtime hours. Granted on the employer's initiative, without a request, it is half as long again, must be given by the end of the reference period, and may not reduce pay for a full month. In both variants no premium is due, but normal remuneration is.

Rest: a limit that the employee's consent does not move

Employees are entitled to at least 11 hours of uninterrupted daily rest and 35 hours of weekly rest. Departures apply to narrow categories — those managing the workplace on the employer's behalf and cases of rescue operations — and require an equivalent rest period to be granted.

This is a protective limit, not a default rule. An employee's consent to breaching it does not legitimise the roster, because provisions less favourable than employment law are void.

Senior staff and remote work

Employees who manage the workplace on the employer's behalf perform work outside normal hours where necessary, without a right to a premium. The exception is construed strictly: it covers those genuinely directing the workplace or a distinct part of it, not everyone with "manager" in their job title. For work on a Sunday or public holiday without a day off in exchange, the premium is due to them as well.

Remote work does not change the working-time norms. It does change the evidential difficulty: system logs, the timestamps on messages and entries in task-management tools are sometimes treated in a dispute as material supplementing the records.

The records decide the dispute

An employer must keep working-time records for each employee and make them available on request. Where records are not kept, or are kept unreliably, a court may base its findings on the evidence presented by the employee, including their own testimony. The burden of establishing the actual number of hours then shifts, in practice, to the employer.

• Record start and finish times, not merely a total number of hours.
• Document instructions to work overtime — including by electronic message.
• Check whether "voluntary" staying late is in practice expected.
• Settle overtime within the reference period in which it arose.

Claims arising from the employment relationship become time-barred three years after they fall due. In a collective dispute over unpaid overtime, the scale of the liability is therefore counted in years, not months.