Time tracking – what should you know?

Keeping track of employees’ working hours makes sense for both employers and employees. However, the process can also bring about problems for both sides. Often, time tracking fails because of the grey areas in monitoring employees. However, if the working hours are laid out in the employment contract, there is no rule book telling employers how to keep time records.

Many employers in the UK have the right to monitor employees’ computers, internet activities, and even intercept their emails. However, there are better methods for monitoring employee performance. When it comes to tracking staff hours, there are more transparent ways to make sure employees are productive at work. In the business world, monitoring working hours is one of the main duties of the human resources department.

Keeping track of your employee’s working hours is not optional. The Working Time Regulations (1998) sets maximum weekly working times, overtime pay, record-keeping, length of night work and break times. Every employer is obliged to keep records of employees, including their hours worked each day and total hours worked each week. The records must be accurate and must be kept for at least two years, but there’s no particular format that time tracking records should follow.

Developments in technology have made it possible to monitor employees at work, collect data, and in that way, track their working hours. In this way, an employer can follow how often an employee leaves the office or their desk to smoke or go to the bathroom. Every step can be meticulously digitalised. Collecting this kind of sensitive employee data or recording employee behaviour is not illegal, but it is still questionable. An employer must take the following into account when recording working hours:

• The employee must know where to find the documentation of tracked time and which employee is responsible for it.
• Both the employer and employees always have access to working time documentation. For this reason, access must be regulated.
• Only the employee, the employer, and responsible personnel have access to the employee’s tracked working hours. Access must first be specifically granted to other persons, offices, or the police.

There are many ways that employers can monitor their employees: via CCTV, email and web monitoring, listening in on telephone calls, and bag searches. However, employers in the UK must tell their employees how they are being monitored.

For practical purposes, employees can round their time worked to the nearest 15 minutes. If employers round down, then they must also round up from time to time so that their employees are fairly treated.

The following are the basic records that an employer is required to maintain:

• Employee’s full name and social security number
• Address
• Birthdate, if younger than 19
• Sex and occupation
• Time and day of the week when employee’s working week begins, hours worked each day, and total hours worked each week
• Basis on which employee’s wages are paid
• Regular hourly pay rate
• Total daily or weekly straight-time earnings
• Total overtime earnings for the workweek
• All additions to or deductions from the employee’s wages
• Total wages paid each pay period
• Date of payment and the pay period covered by the payment

Since there are no clear rules on how working hours should be kept, employee’ hours can be tracked, for example, on handwritten time cards or time sheets, by physically clocking in and out at work, or by using online time tracking software – as long as the total number of hours is set out in the work contract. However, as you might have guessed, land mines abound in everything from meal breaks to overtime, and privacy.

For example, whilst employees who work more than 6 hours a day must be given a 20-minute rest break, the way employers document this time is up to them. Some businesses require precise time tracking by clocking in and out, whilst others automatically deduct meal breaks from the daily working hours.

Rounding time is another tricky area. Because many employers round time up or down to the nearest quarter or half-hour, it can obscure time spent working. Therefore, employees may not be paid correctly.

As already touched upon, privacy is a major concern among the UK workforce. Digital technology has created many grey areas, like the limits of tracking employees’ web or email activities, when they’re not working, or when they are on the road. In the US in 2015, the company Intermex was sued by an ex-employee after she was fired for uninstalling an app on a company work phone that tracked her movements 24 hours a day every day of the week. European privacy limits are much stricter, but CCTV, for example, does enable employers to monitor staff regularly.

Lastly, overtime is another hot topic in the UK. In the past decade, the number of overtime lawsuits have significantly increased, and will probably keep rising. In 2019, the UK Court of Appeal ruled in favour of a group of ambulance drivers who worked overtime, but their boss only paid the contractual holiday leave. Now, voluntary overtime must contribute to holiday pay.

Under UK regulations, employers do not need to pay overtime as long as total pay for hours worked doesn’t fall below the minimum wage. Laws are in place that restrict UK employees from working more than 48 hours per week. However, a large majority of UK employers are now getting around this by adding contractual clauses that void the 48-hour rule.

The specifics of employee time tracking are not regulated except in child labour situations. Time schedules are usually set out in the employment contract. Any changes to the terms must be agreed upon with the employee in writing.

Time tracking can be done by physically jotting down the time, which is one of the most common methods. The employee enters start and end working times manually in a table. Break times are also recorded in this way. Writing a timesheet is common among construction site workers or for project-based work. Temporary or part-time employees also often write down their working times in tables, which they hand to the employer or personnel department on a weekly or monthly basis. This is a popular method used by smaller companies.

Written time tracking methods are not standardised and can be created by the company. The only thing that matters is that the working times can be accurately identified. The sheets must be kept for two years. Using this method of recording working times, managing flexible hours is just as easy.

In many industries, time is tracked using a device that resembles a punch card system. At the beginning and end of the working day, a device is used to check in and out. The electronic system is connected to a PC program which processes and analyses the data. Usually, the employee receives a card, chip, or wristband, through which he or she registers with their name and ID number. Some systems require the employee to check in using their fingerprint.

It is possible to register working hours manually with a program or via an online service or a time tracking app. This is a more modern version of time tracking.

You should take various factors into account when selecting a time tracking system:

Which industry does your company operate in? Does it make sense to track time in the sector in which your company operates? Or are working hours tied to opening hours? Shops and public authorities, for example, have fixed opening hours and working hours. No separate system is necessary here. Without fixed opening or office hours, the working hours of individual employees can vary, so a timekeeping system may be useful.

How is your company organised? Is it an international company that is bound by transnational standards or an independent, medium-sized company? The number of employees also plays a role. In small companies, time tracking can be handled more easily than in large enterprises, since, for example, spontaneous changes in the work schedule can be discussed and adjusted easily. However, to ensure the rights and obligations of all involved, proper documentation is useful.

Which work model do you use? When, where, and how work is done has an influence on the choice of the time tracking system. Not every office has core working hours. Shift work, customer service, work on-call, contract work, remote work, or job sharing must be considered when choosing a system.

What are your preferences? A digital time tracking system near the office entrance makes sense for staff who work in the same location. A time tracking app makes more sense for an employee who is often on the road.

Example: If you run a medium-sized flower shop with five employees, you could keep an analogue list of the working hours in your shop. Once your employees are tied to one place to do their work, this method is practical and easy to implement. As the number of employees increases, the investment in an electronic system becomes worthwhile. This eliminates paperwork and limits errors.

The situation is different for a company that frequently visits clients or sends employees to trade fairs. In this case, employees are not tied to a specific location to check in and out. A time tracking app would be ideal in this case. The app can also be used to document time on the road and time spent meeting clients. In this way, the system not only helps to record working hours, but also to analyse performance. The data can be used to help optimise work steps.

Please note the legal disclaimer relating to this article.