Landmark ruling on the recording of working times on 13 September 2022
In a landmark decision on 13 September 2022, the German Federal Labour Court ruled that employers „are obliged under §3 section 2(1) of the German Occupational Health and Safety Act to introduce a system by which the working time worked by employees can be recorded.“ (Press release, German)
The initiative of the Federal Minister of Labour, Hubertus Heil, and his draft law (German) already aimed at ensuring that in future the beginning of the daily working day „must be recorded electronically and in a tamper-proof manner immediately at the start of work as well as the end and duration of the daily working time on the day of work performance“ and that the recorded data must further be stored electronically for a duration of two years.
Recording working time - preferably digitally!
The fundamental obligation to keep records has existed for some time and is also required by the European Court of Justice, but so far the implementation and shape of the implementation has been the responsibility of the companies. However, the trend is clear, and companies are well advised to establish electronic recording systems sooner rather than later.
The correct recording of actual working hours helps both employers and employees to keep an overview of the work performed and to account for it accurately.
This is because the legislator does not only want to combat undeclared work, but it is also seen as the duty of employers to take care of the safety and health of their employees. One factor to ensure this is the documentation of daily working hours, especially but not exclusively for marginal workers, to prevent overwork, stress, burnout and the like and the associated health and psychological risks (German federal study).
TSI offers the solution
Advantages of mobile working time tracking!
TSI has long offered solutions for mobile working time recording, for timely, accurate and tamper-proof recording and documentation of in-house as well as any field or off-site assignments. All data is accessible from any location in real-time at any time.
- exact recording, accounting, and analysis of working times
- manipulation-proof time recording from both the employer's and the employee's perspective
- instant and location-independent recording of all working hours, as well as legally secure filing and archiving
- comprehensive analyses and reporting for management and payroll accounting
Location-independent and tamper-proof
The solution stands out due to our flexible approach, which ensures the recording of working hours even when employees are not assigned to fixed locations. Our working time recording thus goes far beyond traditional systems, and also empowers companies with a high degree of field service activities to introduce a robust, easy-to-use, and reliable solution – something that was not conventionally possible.
Your employees have small and robust transponder chips in key fob form and use these to record their working hours, even off-site, at any mobile registration point, e.g. in your vehicles or using our completely self-sufficient, autonomous login units.
Suitable even under most demanding conditions
Even without a power supply, TSI's working time logging delivers a viable solution in the field, e.g. in the construction or forestry industry. Our tamper-proof registration points are also available as a self-sufficient, autonomous stand-alone version with integrated batteries and intelligent energy management providing long operating times without recharging.
Likewise, use in remote areas without permanent mobile phone reception is unproblematic. All data is kept in intermediate storage until it can be automatically transmitted at a later point in time.
TSI Connect: Mobile App for Smartphones
Of course, working time recording is also available on our smartphone app, equally as an alternative or in combination with our tamper-proof login points.
Are your employees already using company mobile phones? In this case, the smartphone solution can even replace login points altogether.
The recording via smartphones is particularly versatile: For example, additional information on individual activities can be recorded at the same time and taken into account in payroll accounting. Team leaders are also able to independently manage or correct the working hours of subordinates.
Ultimately, your employees will benefit - allow them to view their own working hours from their private smartphones and, in doing so, meet your information obligations under the General Data Protection Regulation, without any further effort.
You always remain in control: it is you who decides which procedures are to be used by whom and how.
Our system is flexible and fits your individual requirements
Documentation obligations, data protection, working time agreements
The fact that data protection is a top priority for TSI is something we prove time and again, and we are proud to be pioneers in implementing state-of-the-art security measures and integrating these in our systems.
But did you know that data protection is much more than securing your data from unauthorised access, hackers and other ‚bad guys‘?
This is because even legitimate changes, additions or corrections may have to be documented, on the one hand, in order to prevent retrospective manipulations, to make records traceable, but also to fulfil numerous documentation obligations, especially if the working time record is also used for payroll accounting.
All this is quite easy with TSI's working time recording system, because extensive documentation and logging functions are already an integral part of the system. Furthermore, extensive and individually customisable rules and policies are included in order to automatically take working and break time arrangements and any other tariff agreements into account.
No matter whether you are a small company that only wants a simplified solution for time recording or a multi-national enterprise with a large number of employees that needs to implement complex regulations and logging obligations – our time recording system provides you with a platform that grows with you and your requirements.
Learn more?
Did we spark your interest? Find out more about our solutions for working time recording!
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