Is time recording to the minute mandatory in German companies or is it not necessary to be so precise? The Working Hours Act (ArbZg) has precise regulations on this.
The obligation to record working time in hours and minutes
Basically, it is clear that every company in Germany (and the EU) is obliged to record working hours. The exact regulations are laid down in the Working Hours Act, among other things. However, neither the Working Hours Act nor the Occupational Health and Safety Act nor a court ruling clearly states that working hours must be recorded to the minute.
Nevertheless, it is clear from the information in the ArbZg that it is not enough just to determine the hours worked. The ArbZg stipulates that you as an employer must record the “daily working time” of your employees.
As the “daily working time” cannot be measured in hours alone, time recording must therefore be accurate to the minute. This becomes quite clear when we take a closer look at the regulations on recording working time. There are two main reasons why time recording must be accurate to the minute.
Why do working hours have to be recorded to the minute?
The two reasons for recording working time to the minute arise from the other regulations and laws on recording working time. Even if the obligation to record time to the minute is not specifically formulated anywhere, there are other formulations that make this obligation clear.
The “daily working time” in the Working Hours Act
The ArbZg does not define “daily working time” as the eight hours that employees are usually expected to work. Instead, it refers to the exact number of hours worked.
Now you could say that one or two minutes don’t matter if the shift ends after eight hours, but the law takes a different view. After all, just a few minutes can quickly add up to more working hours. Simply calculated, five days on which only twelve minutes more are worked than planned already result in an additional working hour.
This additional working hour must be remunerated accordingly. However, this is only possible if it is also recorded. This is why recording working hours to the minute is mandatory.
Compliance with break times
In the fourth paragraph, the Working Hours Act stipulates break times on a per-minute basis. The minutes are also clearly formulated here.
A break must last at least fifteen minutes. If the working time exceeds six hours, at least thirty minutes must be allowed for breaks. If the working time is over nine hours, it is forty-five minutes.
As the minutes are precisely defined here and a break must last at least fifteen minutes, the working time must also be recorded to the minute. Where else would the break fit in if it does not last exactly one hour?
Conclusion
Time recording to the minute must be implemented in every company that is subject to the obligation to record working time. The reasons for this arise primarily from the Working Hours Act and the regulations for recording working hours contained therein.
However, implementation is not a major problem, as modern time recording systems automatically record working time to the minute.
