The bill, which introduces a requirement for registration of working time for each individual employee and provides the opportunity to derogate from the 48-hour rule for certain employees, has been adopted

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The Parliament passed the bill without changes, and the new rules will therefore enter into force on 1 July 2024. We have previously written an article about the bill, describing the content in detail, which can be found here.

The new rules mean that from 1 July 2024, employers must have an ”objective, reliable and accessible” system for registering the individual employees’ daily working hours.

Update on the Parliament’s reading regarding working time registration
Even though the bill was passed without changes, the Ministry of Employment answered a series of questions at the committee stage concerning the scope of employers’ obligations in relation to the registration of individual employees’ working hours.

At a minimum, the system for registration of working hours must allow for 1) registration of the individual employees’ daily working hours, 2) give the individual employees access to their own information in the system, and 3) retain the registered information for 5 years from the end of the 4-month reference period in accordance with the 48-hour rule.

According to the new act, the system for registration of working hours must be introduced ”with a view to ensuring compliance with the applicable rules on daily and weekly rest periods and maximum weekly working hours”. In response to questions during the committee stage, the Ministry of Employment specified that it would meet the requirements of the act if the system can register the number of daily working hours for the individual employees, whereas it is not a requirement that the system can register the time of day at which the work is performed.

The Ministry of Employment further specified that the system meets the new requirements if an individual employee’s working time is registered in advance in accordance with, for example, fixed working hours or applicable work schedules, and any deviations in this regard are registered gradually as the work is performed.

However, if the employer wants a system that can demonstrate compliance with the rules on daily and weekly rest periods in all aspects, it is necessary to implement a system that can do more than what is required under the new act according to the Ministry of Employment, as the system must allow for registration of a) breaks, and b) start and end times of all ”blocks” of working time.

Consider the exemption for self-organisers
As described in our previous article, the bill introduces a possibility of exempting certain employees from the rules on maximum weekly working time (the 48-hour rule), the rules on daily breaks and the rules on night work. Such an exemption must be stated in the relevant employee’s employment contract, and employers should therefore decide before 1 July 2024 if they want to apply the exemption and, if so, for which employees.

The content of the above is not, and should not be a substitute for legal advice.