Time recording for on-call duty can raise questions. After all, on-call duty is not necessarily work. Or is it? We answer all your questions.
What is on-call duty?
We have already briefly touched on the topic of on-call duty in the article “Is on-call duty also working time?”, but today we want to go into a little more detail.
Let’s first clarify exactly what on-call duty is. Compared to on-call duty, this is basically free time. And to the extent that employees are allowed to organize their time completely freely, as long as they are ready for work within the shortest possible time.
This distinguishes on-call duty from standby duty, where you can tell your employees where they should be. For example, an emergency surgeon should already be at the hospital when he is on call.
With on-call duty, however, it is also possible to sit in Tahiti if you can still be reached and do your work there. For example, if the work can be done on your own laptop. Then you can also be on call at the beach.
In any case, it goes without saying that alcohol and drugs are prohibited during standby duty. Employees must ensure full operational readiness at all times.
The biggest difference between on-call duty and other types of on-call duty is that only the working time is remunerated. This makes sense, because you don’t want to pay your employees to sit on the beach in Tahiti.
For this reason, the recording of working time also plays a special role in on-call duty.
How does time recording work for on-call duty?
According to the Working Hours Act (ArbZG), on-call duty is considered rest time and is therefore not remunerated. This means that no continuous recording of working time is applicable, whereas on-call duty is simply recorded for the full hours from the start to the end of the shift.
In the case of on-call duty, the working time and thus the recording of working time only begins at the moment an activity is started.
Let’s take a look at an example of this:
An IT specialist for a company is on call. If he receives a call, he has to go to the company and take care of the IT there. If there is no call, he can do whatever he wants.
He is out with friends, enjoying a cool non-alcoholic drink in a bar. Then he gets the call. So he quickly finishes his drink and drives to his workplace.
As soon as he arrives at the workplace, he starts recording the time. It takes him around two hours to rectify the problem and carry out a subsequent check to ensure that everything is working smoothly again and that there is no risk of the error occurring again. He has recorded these two hours in real time. As soon as he has finished his work, he stops the time recording and goes back to the bar to join his friends.
Of course, the on-call duty does not end with this call. If another call comes in, he has to go again. He must therefore remain available.
Regulations and exceptions to on-call duty
In general, on-call duty always applies if employees are able to move around freely for the most part during their rest period. In other words, when there are no or hardly any restrictions for them. The IT worker who can go out partying with his friends falls into this category.
According to a ruling by the European Court of Justice, for example, it does not fall under on-call duty if someone has to appear at their place of work in full work gear within a certain time (e.g. 20 minutes), as this has too great an impact on their leisure time. The case concerned a firefighter who had these requirements. This is therefore on-call duty, which must be paid in full.
In general, you are not allowed to give your employees ultimatums for on-call duty. If you specify that someone must be at work within 20 minutes of receiving a call, then this is on-call duty.
In the case of on-call duty, it is of course still the case that employees can take up their work on call within a reasonable time frame. 30 minutes is considered acceptable.
The laws on rest periods also apply to on-call duty. There must therefore be at least 11 hours of rest between two on-call periods.
On-call duty may last a maximum of 10 hours at a time and only 60 hours per week in total.
Employees must have at least 15 Sundays and public holidays off per year.
Employees must be equipped with a modern time recording system so that working time can be recorded to the second during on-call duty. timeCard, for example, offers all the functions required for on-call duty.
