Do you record every hour you work?
The European Court of Justice has ruled that employers must have a system in place to record every hour that employees work. And Brexit or not, that applies to UK organisations too.
Measuring your employees’ working hours and their break periods is now the law and those who fail to do so could face a hefty fine or even a criminal conviction. Employers are now under an obligation to set up an “objective, reliable and accessible system enabling the duration of time worked each day by each worker to be measured“.
The change in legislation came about when one of Spain’s biggest trade unions argued that Deutsche Bank had a duty to record the actual hours worked each day by full-time employees. The bank believed that its only obligation under Spanish law was to record overtime hours.
The Spanish courts referred the case to the European Court of Justice which supported the trade union’s view. As the UK was still within the European Union when this legislation was passed it is set in statute and is likely to remain so.
Without a system for measuring the number of hours worked, there can be no guarantee that all the limits laid down by the Directive (in relation to maximum weekly working time, rest breaks, daily and weekly rest periods etc.) will actually be observed or that workers will be able to exercise their rights. Member states are free to determine the required method of recording working hours.
Optimal PBS provide time and attendance (T&A) software and support to organisations of all sizes across the UK.
To find out more about how we can support your business to implement leading software to manage your employees working hours, contact us on 01422 897 673 or email enquiries@optimal-hr.co.uk
