Purpose and framework for time registration

Working hours are part of the working environment and SDU is committed to ensuring a good working environment.

The purpose of working time registration is to safeguard the rights, health and wellbeing of each employee in the workplace.

To protect the health and safety of employees, all employers in the EU must ensure that employees do not work more than an average of 48 hours per week.

Your manager must continuously monitor that

• your working hours do not exceed an average of 48 hours per week for a period of 4 months
• you are entitled to 11 consecutive hours of rest within 24 hours (also called the 11-hour rule)
• you are entitled to a weekly day off

The actual rule on the registration of working hours is found in Section 4b of the Working Hours Act. This implies that everyone subject to the 48-hour average weekly working hours limit must register their working hours.

This means you register your working hours, but it does  not mean you are saving working hours.

Link to Arbejdstidsloven (in Danish)

Technical/administrative staff (TAP) at SDU are covered by the rules on registration of working hours. TAP includes IT staff, laboratory technicians, engineers, academic staff, technicians, craftsmen, attendants, librarians, specialist and senior consultants, office clerks and employees on individual contracts.

Hourly-paid employees, such as student assistants, student study advisers, hourly-paid IT staff, student teachers and hourly-paid PhD students, etc. already register their total daily working hours on timesheets as a basis for payment of salary. Timesheets are approved monthly by management. This group is subject to the obligation to register their total daily working hours, but do not have to register their working hours separately, as the timesheets fulfil the legal requirements for registering working hours.

Only working hours, as defined in the Working Time Directive, must be registered.

Working hours are the ‘time when you are at work and at SDU's disposal and performing your tasks’. This applies whether you are at work or working from home. All other time is considered rest time.

According to the 11-hour rule, there is no requirement for uninterrupted rest if you have chosen to work fully or partially from home. You are simply entitled to a total of 11 hours of rest.

On-call time from home is generally not considered working time in the sense of the Working Time Directive and therefore does not need to be registered unless you are called to work. In that case, you must register your working hours as well as the time travelling between home and work. On-call time at the workplace is generally full working time if you are at the workplace. 

In relation to daily travelling time, it should be noted that the daily travelling time back and forth between home and the permanent place of work is considered rest time and therefore should not be registered as working hours.In relation to travelling time for work-related trips, to/from temporary places of employment, etc., the time that exceeds the daily travelling time between home and the permanent place of work must be registered as working hours.

In relation to participation in conferences, seminars and courses, etc., the programmed time must be registered as working hours. Personal time during the event and social activities such as attending conference dinners, etc. are rest time and should therefore not be registered as working hours. In terms of travelling time, if the event is not held at your permanent place of work but elsewhere (e.g. at a conference hotel in another city), it is a work-related trip – and the travel time that exceeds your normal daily commuting time between home and your permanent place of work is therefore working hours and must be registered as such.

You are required to register your working hours so your manager can make sure you do not exceed an average of 48 hours per week over a period of four months. 

• If you are covered by a flexitime scheme and register hours in Buanco, please continue to do so. You must send your flexitime accounts to your manager immediately after the end of the month as usual.
• If you are an hourly paid student, e.g. HK or SUL student assistant, you must register hours for payment. Therefore, further registration is not necessary. 
• Other technical/administrative staff must register working hours in mTIME. Hours must be entered in the solution retroactively to 1 July 2024. No later than 5 days after the end of the month, you must approve the timesheet. If you fail to approve it, you and your manager will receive an email. Until mTIME is implemented in your organisation, you can enter your hours in Outlook or use Excel sheets. In both mTIME and the Excel sheet, you must register your total daily working hours. You can find a guide on how to use mTIME here (link)
• If you register hours spent on external research projects in mTIME, please continue to do so.

The registration of working hours is a tool to support ongoing dialogue between you and your line manager to ensure a balance between working life and workload and document compliance with the rules. 

If you are required to register your working hours in mTIME, your manager will have access to your data in mTIME but will not need to approve your timesheet. 

SDU has a reporting system that monitors whether there are employees with a high number of working hours (45 hours per week for a period of two consecutive months), and the manager will be notified accordingly.

In addition, employees with administrative and system roles in mTIME will have access to your data.

Regardless of whether hours are registered in Buanco or mTIME, you can access your own data. 

SDU is obliged to store data for five years.

Data in mTIME can be used for statistical analysis and discussions in management forums and liaison committees. If the organisation wants to use data in mTIME for other purposes, this must be agreed in the co-operation organisation.