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You already have to record it. In 2019 the Court of Justice of the European Union held that member states must require employers to have an objective, reliable and accessible system for measuring daily working time — a ruling that comes out of health and safety law, not out of payroll. So anyone waiting for a new statute is waiting for the form, not for the duty.
The route to it is quickly told. In May 2019 the Court held (C-55/18) that member states must require employers to have an objective, reliable and accessible system for measuring daily working time. What followed differs by country: one had already legislated, another spent years drafting.
What that duty looks like exactly where you are — electronic or on paper, with what transition periods, with what relief for small businesses — is not something to take from a blog article. Ask your trade association, your occupational health service or your payroll bureau. This article describes what is settled regardless of that question.
Where the duty comes from
The basis lies not in the pay rules but in health and safety. An employer is required to have a suitable organisation and the necessary means for safe and healthy work — and from that, in the light of European law, the duty was derived to introduce and use a system for measuring working time.
Two things follow that are often confused. First: the duty sits with the employer, not with the employee — even where the filling in is done in practice by the technician. Second: this is about health and safety, not about supervision. The purpose is that maximum working times and rest periods can be checked at all, and that is the yardstick a system is measured against.
For a business with five to fifteen people that is good news, because it takes the drama out of the requirement: what is asked for is traceable evidence, not alterable unnoticed after the fact, of when work happened. What is not asked for is a terminal, a badge or analysis software.
Waiting for a new statute does not help. It decides the form of the record, no longer the whether.
What has long applied regardless
A few things hang on no reform and apply whatever form your country has settled on. Get them in order and you have done most of the work already.
| What you record | For whom | Why it counts | Where to ask about the period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Start, end and duration of daily working time | all staff | without those three values maximum working times cannot be checked | your trade association or occupational health service |
| Breaks | all staff | they decide whether the rest period between two shifts was met | your trade association or occupational health service |
| The hours of casual and flexible staff | everyone working irregularly | shorter deadlines for recording the hours often apply here, and this is where checks start | your payroll bureau or your accountant |
The third row is the one most often overlooked in workshops. The helper behind the parts counter or whoever changes tyres on a Saturday falls in most systems under a heavier recording regime than the permanent staff, not a lighter one. That is counter-intuitive, and it is precisely where an inspection begins.
Breaches of recording duties are punishable. Estimating the amount is pointless, because in practice the back-payment of contributions is the larger item once working times cannot be substantiated.
Special case: recovery and roadside assistance
Anyone driving vehicles above 3.5 tonnes falls under separate rules for mobile workers with their own requirements for recording and rest. That is a body of rules of its own and is not covered by the above — sort it out separately before you build your time model on it.
What gets recorded — and what a system is measured against
Substantively it is about three values: start, end and duration of daily working time, and thereby implicitly the breaks. From the European ruling come the three properties a system is measured against — objective, reliable and accessible.
- Objective means: the record reflects what actually happened, not what was planned. A rota is not a time record.
- Reliable means: it comes into being close to the moment itself and cannot be changed unnoticed afterwards. A sheet filled in from memory at the end of the month does not meet that.
- Accessible means: the employee can reach their own data. That is practically useful too, because it ends most arguments about overtime before they arise.
Delegating is allowed, giving it away is not
The technician may fill in their own times — that is the normal case and practically the only version that works in a workshop without friction. Responsible for the system, and for it actually being used, the business remains. In practice that means: handing out sheets is not enough; somebody has to look at them regularly and raise gaps.
Working without fixed hours
Working on the basis of trust remains possible. It means you do not prescribe when the working time falls — not that it is not recorded. Both at once is fine; it is simply no longer an argument for writing nothing down at all. Different limits apply to certain managerial roles; whether and how far that extends to recording is a question for your lawyer and rarely arises in a business with five technicians.
Related articles
Paper, spreadsheet or system — and the mistake that is in almost all of them
All three routes are permitted, as long as the result meets those three properties. They differ in where they break in practice.
| Route | Where it works | Where it breaks |
|---|---|---|
| Paper time sheet | small teams, fixed hours, filled in daily | as soon as it gets filled in retrospectively; and when finding it again after two years |
| Spreadsheet | calculates by itself, easy to analyse | every cell can be changed without a trace — exactly what "reliable" excludes |
| Time recording in the system | at the moment itself, logged, visible to the employee | when it runs alongside the job time and nobody brings the two together |
Job time is not working time
That is the mistake most common in workshops, because it looks so plausible. You have been recording times for ages — namely the times booked to a job. Yet that booking does not satisfy the recording duty: it knows neither the start nor the end of the working day, it does not know the breaks, and it stops where unproductive time begins. Build your evidence on it and you cannot show for a single day when somebody arrived and left.
The other way round, comparing those two numbers is the most useful analysis there is in a workshop: attendance time against booked job time, per person, per month. The difference is your unproductive time — and how many productive hours you may put into your costing hangs on it. How the two can be brought together on one job is what the workshop software shows.
Two clocks that are not the same
The period you keep working-time data for is not the same as the retention period for your books. Payroll documents and everything that ends up in the accounts follow their own, longer rhythm — which periods apply to you is something your accountant knows. So do not throw away time sheets as soon as one of the two clocks has run out.
What you do concretely this month
Five steps, in this order. Together they cost a morning.
- Settle how recording happens — one method for everybody, not three side by side. That inconsistency is the actual finding in an inspection.
- Give it to the staff in writing: when it gets filled in (daily), what gets filled in (start, end, breaks) and who follows up when something is missing.
- Start with the flexible and casual staff. Shorter deadlines often apply there, and that is where people look first.
- Schedule a fixed monthly pass — a quarter of an hour in which gaps and outliers in rest periods stand out. That is the part that actually discharges the duty.
- Sort out storage: where the records live, for how long, and who besides you may look at them.
Privacy, briefly and practically
Working-time data is personal data. It is collected for a stated purpose, kept no longer than necessary, and seen only by whoever needs it for their job. Biometrics — a fingerprint on a terminal — are better avoided in a business of this size: that is special-category data with clearly heavier requirements, and the effort is out of all proportion to the benefit. Where a works council exists, it has a say in introducing technical means capable of monitoring staff; in a business with eight people that rarely arises, but it is not a detail to overlook.
The duty exists, its precise form is the open question — and that changes nothing about what you can do this month. One method for everybody, filled in daily, a monthly pass, proper storage. If you take only one number away from it, take the difference between attendance time and job time: it discharges no duty, but it tells you more about your business than any other analysis.
Running the workshop without paperwork?
Jobs, labour units, parts and invoices in one system. From drop-off to the e-invoice, with nothing entered twice.
