Purpose and framework for time registration in accordance with the Working Time Act

Working hours are part of the work environment, and SDU is obligated to ensure a good working environment.

The purpose of time tracking is to safeguard the individual employee's rights, health, and well-being in the workplace. 

All employers in the EU are required, for the sake of employee work environment protection, to ensure that employees do not work more than an average of 48 hours per week.

Your manager must continuously ensure that:

• your working hours do not exceed an average of 48 hours per week over a 4-month period

• you have 11 consecutive hours of rest within 24 hours (also known as the 11-hour rule)

• you are entitled to a weekly day off

The actual rule on time tracking can be found in Section 4b of the Working Time Act and means that everyone covered by the rules on a maximum average weekly working time of 48 hours must track their time.  

So, this means that you record time, but it does not mean that you accumulate time.

Technical and administrative staff (TAP) at SDU are subject to the rules in the Working Time Act regarding time registration. TAP includes, among others, IT staff, laboratory technicians, engineers, academic staff, technicians, craftsmen, attendants, librarians, senior and chief consultants, office workers, and employees on individual contracts.

Hourly-paid employees, such as student assistants, student counsellors, hourly-paid IT staff, student instructors, and hourly-paid PhD students, etc., already register their total daily working hours on timesheets as a basis for salary payment. The timesheets are approved monthly by management. This group is subject to the obligation to register their total daily working hours but does not need to perform separate working time registration, as the timesheets meet the legal requirements for working time registration.

Working time is the "period during which you are at work and at the SDU's disposal and performing your duties". This applies regardless of whether you are at work or working from home. All other time is rest time.

Regarding the 11-hour rule, there is no requirement for uninterrupted rest if you have chosen to work fully or partially from home. You only need to have 11 hours of rest in total.

On-call duty from home is generally not working time in the sense of the Working Time Directive and therefore does not need to be registered unless you are called to work. Then the time you work, including the time spent travelling between home and the workplace, must be recorded. On-call time at the workplace is generally fully working time if you are at the workplace.

In relation to daily travelling time, please note that the daily travelling time back and forth between home and the permanent place of work is considered rest time and should therefore not be registered as working time.

In relation to travelling time in connection with work-related trips, to/from temporary duty stations, etc. the time that exceeds the daily commuting time between home and the permanent place of work must be recorded as working time.

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

You are required to track your time so your manager can ensure that you do not work more than 48 hours per week on average over a 4-month period.

• If you are covered by a flexitime arrangement and record hours in Buanco, you will continue to do so as before. As usual, you will send your flexitime report to your manager immediately after the end of the month. From March 1, 2026, the implementation of flexitime tracking in mTIME will begin.

• If you are an hourly-paid student, e.g., an HK or SUL student assistant, you record hours for payment. Therefore, you do not need to record anything further.
  
  
• Special and senior consultants record time in mTIME. No later than 5 days after the end of the month, you must approve the timesheet. If you do not approve it, you will receive a reminder email.
  
  
• If you record hours on external research projects in mTIME, you will continue to do so as before. 

Working time registration is a tool to support ongoing dialogue between you and your immediate manager to ensure a balance between work life and workload, as well as to document that the rules are being followed.

For those of you who register time in mTIME, your manager will have access to your data in mTIME.

SDU has a reporting system that monitors whether there are employees with high working hours (48 hours/week over a period of 4 consecutive months).

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

You can always access your own data in mTIME.

SDU is obligated to store information for 5 years.

Data in mTIME can be used for statistics for discussions in management forums and cooperation committees. If the organisation wishes to use data in mTIME for other purposes, this must be agreed upon in the cooperation organisation.