Employees who register their working hours electronically must receive a copy of their report via email or e-box. This applies to employees under the VVS collective agreement and the EL collective agreement 2020-2023. And it is the company’s own responsibility to ensure that they, together with their system provider, comply with the requirement.
Based on the requirement for a copy of the time registration described in the plumbing agreement 2020-2023, TEKNIQ Arbejdsgiverne, which is an employer and industry organization for electricity, plumbing and metal, together with the plumbing company Vest VVS ApS initiated a complaint against the wording of this claim back in 2022. The decision of the appeal was that TEKNIQ Arbejdsgiverne, VVS ApS and the other companies subject to the collective agreement had to recognize the claim.
The decision places new and higher requirements on both the companies and the IT system they use for recording their work time. In this blog post you can learn more about the case, the consequences it has for the companies, and the views of the parties involved in the case.
What is the background of the case?
In October 2022, a professional arbitration presented a critique of the wording of the plumbing agreement’s section on Worksheets. The case concerned section 4 pcs. 4, 2 of the collective agreement, which says:
“If electronic reporting of working hours is used, the employee must receive a copy of his/hers report at the email address that the employee has provided to the employer, or via e-box.” (ed.).
The reason why this provision was added when the collective agreement was renewed in 2020 was that it should be possible to uncover any irregular working time registrations. At the same time, it should solve the problem that a terminated employee would lose access to and documentation of the reported work if it was only in the time registration system.
Supreme Court judge Lars Hjortnæs’ decision in the arbitration case was:
“TEKNIQ Arbejdsgiverne and Vest VVS ApS must acknowledge that the company’s employees must receive an exact copy of their reporting of working hours and salary components, either by e-mail or via e-box when the reporting is done electronically” and that “the copy must be sent to the employees in close temporal connection with the report.” (ed.).
The decision means that it is not sufficient to only have the registration on a time registration app, from which the registration can later be extracted with the other registrations and made into a full overview, which can be sent to the employee’s e-mail. On the contrary, it is a requirement to send an electronic copy of each individual report to the employee in “close temporal connection with the report” (ed.).
The ruling faces criticism
The decision in the arbitration case has created a debate among several profiles in the administration industry and in the companies concerned. Including Christophe Zafiryadis, CEO of the digital time registration system Intempus. He believes that the decision is not in line with the IT we have today, and that it is unnecessary to send the report via email or e-box to the employee if it is already freely available on the app.
“Fundamentally, what I do not understand is that the information must be sent to the employee and that it is not enough that they have it available, incl. log of changes and possibility to download the data, directly in the time registration system. Instead, the requirement should be that the employee’s data must be available to the employee. That would actually make the employee feel more safe” (ed.), says Christophe Zafiryadis.
Christophe emphasizes that with a digital time recording system it will still be possible for the employee to access his or her data after a possible dismissal or termination, and that the premise for the claim therefore does not hold.
Head of Finance at Dansk Kabel TV, Claus Rosendal Hansen, supports this point of view. He and his employees are currently figuring out how to comply with the requirement in practical terms.
“I think that the requirement bears the stamp of an old-fashioned way of thinking, where things are static and inflexible rather than modern and more fluid” (ed.), says Claus Rosendal Hansen incomprehendingly.
The requirement will mean that Claus, his employees and the administrative staff will have to spend more time on administrative work.“If the employee makes a change in their report, do they have to send another new email? After all, it creates a lot of extra work for both the employee and the administrative staff. Instead, you should make use of the possibilities that lie in digital, online time registration, where you can always keep a continuous overview as both employee and administrator” (ed.), he says.
Not necessarily a safe method
It is not necessarily a 100% secure and encrypted method to send a receipt for the report to the employee via email, says Christophe Zafiryadis:
“From a data protection point of view, it is far more unsafe to send the data via email than for the employee to access it directly via the system where the data is created and secured/encrypted. It seems as if those who made the decision have an outdated view of IT and time recording” (ed.), he says.
Therefore, according to him, the requirement will neither increase safety nor give them a better overview of their hours.
What should you be aware of as a company?
If you as a company use electronic reporting of working hours and are subject to the VVS agreement or the EL agreement 2020-2023, it is your responsibility to ensure that the IT system you use for reporting can meet the following requirements:
- The employee must receive an exact copy of his or her report
- The copy must be sent to the employee’s email or mailbox
- The copy must be sent in close temporal connection with the report.
If these requirements are not complied with, you as a company may risk being fined for breach of the collective agreement.
Is there a prospect of changes in the requirement?
With the ongoing collective agreement negotiations in the private sector – also known as OK23 –, it will be interesting to see whether the wording of the current requirement for a copy of the digital time registration changes or whether the requirement is maintained in its current form. You can get an overview and follow the latest updates in the OK23 negotiations in our blog post here.
Intempus meets all requirements and regulations
With Intempus you get a time registration system that complies with all the new requirements and rules within administration. For example, we can ensure that the employee can always access their data via the web, download it to Excel and print it if they wish. They can also follow whether changes are made to their registrations, see who made the change and when it happened. They will also be notified in the system when these changes have been made. And in the event of termination or dismissal, they of course still have the right to access their data.
If you are curious to hear more about Intempus, feel free to book a demo completely free:
Or give us a call on: +45 26390400
Sources: VVS Overenskomst 2020-2023 & Faglig voldgiftssag FV 2022-953
