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The Workplace

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    In the EU, it is required to track working hours for almost all salaried employees.
    – cbeleites
    Commented Apr 4, 2023 at 19:06
  • @cbeleitesunhappywithSX, yes, the legal requirement that certain working hours limits are not exceeded is one example. The need to maintain a fire register, and the existence of access control systems, are more examples where effectively the modern "staff" have their hours systematically recorded and are monitorable in ways that formerly only the "workforce" suffered.
    – Steve
    Commented Apr 5, 2023 at 7:34
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    @cbeleitesunhappywithSX Citation needed. As far as I'm aware, there is no hard requirement in the EU directive to track it (see also my reply to your other comment). It is just that employers must ensure that employees do not exceed 60 hours per week (peak), or 48 hours per week on average over (IIRC) 5 weeks. That can be done by fostering a workplace culture that doesn't promote excessive overwork, looking out for your employees, or by bureaucracy of keeping timesheets or the like.
    – Mark Rotteveel
    Commented Apr 5, 2023 at 10:50
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    @MarkRotteveel: AFAIK you are right in that the EU directive does not specify tracking. However, there's an ECJ decision (eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:62018CJ0055) that clarifies that working hours must be recorded in a fashion enabling proof at a court of whether the regulation was violated or not. Violations are not only daily and weekly limits of working hours, but also minimum rest times (e.g. proove that the rest between end of work and beginning was > 11h). The court also says that you cannot prove correct recording of overtime without first recording regular
    – cbeleites
    Commented Apr 5, 2023 at 12:48
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    @cbeleitesunhappywithSX: I'm not so sure about that: The primary purpose of the regulations around timesheets seemed to be that the employee has some recorded proof of their working times to use against the employer - be it to request overtime compensation, or to prove exactly what you point out, that they had to work beyond legal work limits. Therefore, after the initial panic about what the court decision might mean, from what I have seen and heard from others, common practice appears to be that any place with "Vertrauensarbeitszeit" has employees fill out their own timesheets ...
    – O. R. Mapper
    Commented Apr 6, 2023 at 10:52