The 48-hour rule is created to ensure orderly conditions for employees – and if you break the rule, it can have financial consequences for you as an employer. But what exactly is it about?
What is the 48-hour rule?
The working time regulation that is the foundation for the 48-hour rule is a part of the EU directive. The 48-hour rule’s main purpose is to set up a framework for how much your employee is allowed to work for you. The rule thereby ensures that the employee’s work force is not taken advantage of and it also ensures that they are not exposed to a work load that is too much.
The 48-hour rule says that the employee can work for 48 hours at maximum during a seven day period on average over a period of 4 months, including over time. Periods with paid vacation and periods with sickness are not counted in the calculation of the average number. It doesn’t matter when in the year the 4 months are placed, but it has to be 4 months in a row.
The rule counts for every wage earner. Wage earners that have a working agreement that ensures them at least the same rights as the working hour regulation, however, are not included.
Periods with special paid vacation and periods with sickness leave are not counted in the calculation of the average number.
What happens if you break the rule?
It is your responsibility as an employer to comply with the rule. If you break the 48-hour rule this means that the employee is entitled to compensation. The compensation to your employee is typically between DKK 25,000–50,000, but the fine can be reconsidered if there is a case of special conditions. The size of the compensation was determined in the supreme court in 2017.
It doesn’t take much for you to end up with financial consequences as an employer. Even small transgressions of the rules can trigger compensation.
You should also be aware that a discharged employee can demand compensation due to transgression of the 48-hour rule and if the rules are transgressed, the employer needs to pay the compensation no matter what.
How do you avoid breaking the 48-hour rule?
With a large group of employees and many daily projects, it can be difficult to keep track of every employee’s working hours and if they are complying with the 48-hour rule. Despite of this, the responsibility lies at the employer and therefore it is important to get an overview of the hours worked. One of the tools to help you with this could be to have a digital time registration.
Instead of having all the registrations of every individual employee’s working hours on physical papers laying around the office, you can with great advantage always keep the updated time consumption gathered digitally.
By doing this you can in a very few seconds check how much every single employee has worked. Thereby you help yourself maintain the overview that will help you ensure the future demands of compensation and by this save a lot of money.
Even the EU court thinks that time registration is important
From July 1st 2024, it has been legally binding for all danish companies to introduce an “objective, reliable and accessible system that makes it possible to measure the length of each individual employee’s daily working time” (ed.). The law contributes to ensuring that employees’ hours are documented and that they do not work too much. In the system, it must also be possible to document that the 48-hour rule is observed. You can read more about the legal requirements here.
