Working Life > Working hours

Working Hours

Definition, Explanation

The Working Hours Act regulates the working hours for employees and apprentices generally. The law is setting the basic principles. The actual working hours are determined by collective agreements, company agreements or individual employment contracts. For clerks, there are working hours decrees applying. Works councils and personnel boards govern the times of working start, working end, break times and distribution of working hours over week days.

The purpose of working hours act is about health and safety of the employees. Therefore, its contents are:

• Daily maximum working hours is set to 8 hours per work day on average and maximum 10 hours per day. Also Saturday is a work day
• The resting period after work serves recreation and relaxing, and amounts to minimum 11 hours
• A cutting down of that resting period to 10 hours is permitted in hospitals, in nursing care, in gastronomy and accommodation service, in traffic and public transport services, in broadcasting, in agriculture and animal husbandry
• The cut/short resting period is to be compensated for within 4 weeks by days of minimum 12 hours of resting period
• Concerning the resting periods, for medical doctors and nursing care staff in hospitals there are further exceptions within on-call service
• The maximum limit for working hours per week of 48 hours must be complied with for the average over 6 months
• After 6 hours of working at the latest, there must be a resting break granted. For work of 6 to 9 hours, that break is 30 minutes, for longer working 45 minutes. Further details on break regulation may be ordered by the employer, whereas the works council has a right of co-determination in this matter
• The working hours can be designed as flexible working hours, or flexihours. Here, it must be assured that within 6 months, the balance is an average of 8 hours per day
• For night work, there are compulsory occupational-medical examinations. In cases of endangered health, or care for children of ages below 12 or of family members in severe need of nursing care, the employee must be transferred to a non-night-work position
• Sundays and holidays are to be kept work-free, except for work that cannot be done on work days only (fire fighters, medical emergency service, accommodation service)
• For an expansion of the working hours to longer than 12 hours, there has to be assured a resting period of 11 hours minimum
• The regulations on working hours also include the subject of working breaks, overtime work, or over-hours, stand-by duty, on-call duty, shift work, Sundays- and holidays-work

The hours counting as working hours are defined as follows:

• Hours between working start and working end
• Resting breaks do not count
• Working-readiness and stand-by duty count fully as working hours
• On-call duty only counts as working hours to the extent of hours that you actually work

Legislation may have imposed certain prescriptions by working hours act regulations. However, since every economy branch and every company have their own specific requirements, employers and the employees, or their representatives, are called upon to regulate working hours in collective agreements or in company agreements. This is especially advised for expansions of working hours to over 8 hours per day that occur without compensation by free-time. While taking into account the works councils' co-determination, the employer turns out, by their right to issue directives, to have command over daily working hours scheduling and over flexitime introducing.

The working hours act does not apply to:

• Executive employees and chief physicians
• Chiefs of public service institutions and employees in public service who are responsible for personnel matters
• Employees who educate, or nurse, or care for persons who they are living with
• Liturgical areas of churches and of religious groups
• Employees below the age of 18. Here, the Youth Labour Act applies
• Employees in aviation and in inland water navigation. Here, what applies is the Zweite Durchführungsverordnung zur Betriebsordnung für Luftfahrtgerät (second decree on execution of operating decree for flight vessels) and the Rheinschiffs-Untersuchungsordnung (Rhine ship examination decree), respective the Binnenschiffs-Untersuchungsordnung (inland water navigation examination decree)

Working hours that extend the regular working hours but are compensated for by free time within 6 months, are over-time work, which is is not extra remunerated for. If those working hours are not compensated for by free time, they are considered over-hours, to be remunerated at least at the usual wage per hour. For over-hours, there are furthermore special regulations.

Flexibilization of working hours, over the decades, has produced models such as annual working hours, working time accounts, flexitime, half-day work, part-time work, jobsharing, life-time working time accounts, trust-based working hours, modular working hours, tele-working, timewise autonomous working teams, work on call, individual working hours and sabbatical. The income, or remuneration, is directly connected / related to matters of working hours.

Compliance with ordered working hours is often controlled by means of timekeeping devices. While in certain branches, there are fixed working hours necessary for operational fluidity, e.g. for hospital doctors, air traffic controllers, or in manufacturing, there are other branches where you can react are rather flexibly. E.g., in IT, fixed regulations of presence more and more lose importance, since what counts is the outcome of the work. In many occupations, the use of teleworkplaces is possible, allowing the employees to work at home.

Tips, Checklist

• Commuting time, as the time to travel your way to work, is not working time. Also, breaks, and dressing/undressing times are not working times
• An expansion of working hours without compensation by free-time or additional income is only allowed if the employees concerned approve in written
• If you do not want to give your approval to an expansion of your working hours without compensation, there must be no disadvantage to you arising from it
• You can countermand any written approval you have given, within 6 months after
• As an employer, you have to keep a record of who of the employees have assented an expansion of their working hours. Keep that record in store, for at least 2 years
• The Working Hours Act, the legal regulations, collective agreements and company agreements are to be posted or placed such that they are accessible to everyone
• Inspecting authorities are to be provided information on regulations on working hours and compliance with them
• Longer working hours must be recorded
• Working hours are subject to co-determination. I.e. the works council co-determines the start and end of daily working hours, the breaks, the distribution of working hours over several days of the week, and cutting or expansion of working hours. For that, also requisites of health and safety are to be complied with
• Changes of working hours must not be simply ordered and imposed, but are to be agreed by negotiation, respectively a dismissal with (re-employment plus) altered conditions of employment has to be performed
• If you are in several employment relations, your working hours are added up. The legal maximum-limits include even Sundays work, Minijob, and side-line jobs

Articles

• Modern Technology Brings More Productivity, Longer Working Hours; TechCrunch, July 24, 2009
• Study: Facebook use cuts productivity at work; Computerworld, July 22, 2009

Last update: 07/30/2010