Since July 1st 2024, all danish companies have been obligated to have 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. The purpose of the law is to implement the EU Court’s judgment from 2019, which sets new requirements to register employees’ working hours for all EU countries.
What is the background of the law?
In June 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union issued a judgment on employers’ duty to register employees’ working hours in order to ensure compliance with rules on daily and weekly rest time as well as maximum weekly working hours. You can read more about the EU Court’s working time directive here. Since June 2019, there have been discussions between the social partners and the government about the implementation of the EU judgment in national legislation. In a new bill from the Danish Ministry of Employment, this EU judgment is being concretized in specific legislative national proposals. You can see the entire proposal here.
What does the law contain?
According to the new law, it is mandatory for employers to introduce a system for registering employees’ working time.
The employer can choose which time recording system they want to use to meet the registration requirement. However, there is a requirement that it must be an:
“objective, reliable and accessible working time registration system that makes it possible to measure the individual employee’s daily working hours”.
It also appears that the use of information registered in the system is still subject to any control agreements that apply to the employee, or other rules such as GDPR.
And finally, employees themselves must have access to their own information in the time registration system.
The Ministry of Employment’s requirement for the introduction of a time registration system and the obligation for the employee to comply with this applies to the wage earner groups covered by the Act and the rules on rest time in the Working Environment Act.
The exception provision
As a starting point, all employees who are paid for carrying out work for an employer must register working hours in the chosen system. But the law contains an exception provision or a so-called “opt out” from the rules on maximum weekly working hours, breaks, etc., including the 48-hour rule. The exception provision makes it possible to expand the possibility to exempt several staff groups from the rules on working hours, breaks and rest time. The option may be relevant for employees who have managerial functions and the freedom to determine their own working hours, or for employees who are not obliged to be at the workplace at certain times.
In the law, it is elaborated that the possibility to deviate from the rule of a maximum working week of 48 hours in average may be:
“taken into effect in relation to employees, who are covered by collective agreement provisions on on-call shifts, including local agreements on this, and who perform socially critical functions in those areas” (§4a, 2)
More specifically, the the following employees are excluded from the rules of time registration:
- Workers who can set their own working hours, also called “self-organizers”
- Personnel with management functions or other personnel who have the authority to make independent decisions, i.e. eg. the company’s CEO.
It is important to emphasize that only a very few people can be exempted. The exception provision must be interpreted restrictively, i.e. that if there is doubt as to whether a particular employee is covered by the requirements for time registration, that person probably is covered.
If an employee is excluded from the rules, it is important that this is stated in their employment contract.
Why is it a great idea to get a time tracking system?
You as a company can benefit from getting a time tracking system. A digital time registration system is partly an advantage for the employer because it saves time on administrative work and reduces manual errors. The system provides a full overview of the employees’ hours, holidays, outlays, driving etc. and ensures compliance with rules such as The 48-hour rule and the 11-hour rule. And partly it is an advantage for the employee, who will experience that the daily time recording becomes easier and more flexible, as well as that rules on overtime are observed and that no vacation days are lost. In this way, the best conditions are created for a healthy and productive working environment.
With a flexible and user-friendly time registration system from Intempus, you can get customized setup that is adapted to the applicable collective agreements in the company. The system can easily integrate with your payroll and ERP systems, so that your data can easily flow between the systems and eliminate administrative duplication. It becomes easier to keep track of the time and the employees in the company.
If you are interested in how our time registration system optimize the work processes in your company, feel free to call us on +45 26 390 400, or book a non-binding demo:
Sources: kromannreumert.com, bechbruun.com, Beskæftigelsesministeriets lovforslag, Lønskolens webinar.
