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Working Time Directive

The Working Time Directive – A Practical Guide & Solution for ‘Clocking and Non-Clocking Honour Based Cultures.’

 

What are the main provisions of the current Working Time Directive?

The Directive provides a minimum guarantee (depending on age) of:
  • A maximum average working week (including overtime) of 48 hours. 
  • A minimum daily rest period of 11 consecutive hours in every 24. 
  • Breaks when the working day exceeds six hours.  
  • A minimum weekly rest period of 24 hours plus the 11 hours daily rest period in every seven-day period.
  • A minimum of four weeks paid annual leave.
  • For night workers whose work involves special hazards or heavy physical or mental strain, night work is restricted to an average of eight hours in any 24-hour period.

 

To whom does the working time directive apply?

  • To all sectors of activity, both public and private.
  • Air, rail, road, sea, inland waterway and lake transport, sea fishing, other work at sea and the activities of doctors in training are excluded from the 1993 directive but brought within its scope in the 2000 directive.
  • All the excluded sectors except doctors in training have been covered, under national law, since 1 August 2003. 
  • Doctors in training have been covered since 1 August 2004. They will work a maximum week of 58 hours until 2009. From 1 August 2009 their maximum working week falls to 48 hours. 
  • Who is exempt?
  • Member States may exempt three categories of worker from the directive's key provisions: managing executives or other persons with autonomous decision-making power; family workers; and workers officiating at religious ceremonies. 
  • Other categories can be exempted from the directive's key provisions provided compensatory rest or appropriate protection is granted. These include employees who work a long way from home, or whose activities require a permanent presence or continuity of service or production, or who work in sectors which have peaks of activity. Examples include offshore workers, security guards, journalists, emergency workers, agricultural workers and tour guides.
  • Under 18 year olds because they can only work a maximum of 40 hours per week, 5 days a week.
 

How is working time defined?

Working time is deemed to be "any period during which the worker is working, at the employer's disposal and carrying out his activities or duties, in accordance with national laws and/or practice" (Article 2). Rest time is defined as "any period, which is not working time". There is no provision under the existing directive for on-call time. 
 

How is the maximum working week calculated?

The maximum week of 48 hours is calculated as an average over a standard reference period of four months (Article 16). This gives employers flexibility to organise work patterns in accordance with the nature of the work. In certain cases, the reference period can be extended to six months, e.g. for employees who work a long way from home, security guards, journalists, postal workers, agricultural workers or transport workers. In addition, Member States can allow the reference period to be extended to up to one year, under a collective agreement.
 

IS YOUR ORGANISATION WTD COMPLIANT?

Employers have a statutory duty to keep records and take reasonable steps to ensure the Working Time Directive limits and policies are complied with.

Four tools exist within Softworks' Workforce Optimisation Solutions to monitor WTD compliance within clocking & non-clocking enviroments:

1) WTD CALENDAR SCREEN

This screen gives the user an employee’s WTD details for the year in clear, graphical detail.  The excess hours violation is marked in red.  It also generates it own comments on how and why the violation has occurred from an inbuilt library.
 

2) WTD DATA ENTRY SCREEN

This screen allows you to override the calculated hours worked or the start and end times for the Working Time Directive. The system can be set up to deduct paid and unpaid breaks from the WTD automatically whether the employee clocks/enters them or not.  The screen also shows the reason the violation occurs. 

3) WTD SUMMARY SCREEN

This screen allows the user to sort the WTD Summary Screen contents at any time by the click of a button.  It also shows the employee average over the displayed period and highlights where an employee is over the allowed weekly average.  The screen also highlights those weeks that have been flagged as an exception according to the WTD

4) WTD REPORT SCREEN

This screen allows the user to run a report on all employees’ current worked or scheduled hours. The report also highlights if employees have available hours to work or have worked excess hours without infringing the act.

For more information please click here!

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Games Workshop
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We used to have to work out all the shift enhancements and calculate the entitlements to be paid manually. Now we don't have to do that because the Softworks solution does it all for us. I think we must save at least two days each 4-weekly pay period through not having to make all the manual adjustments

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