Planning of overtime
Earlier we drew your attention to the importance of vacation planning. This article focuses also on planning, regarding overtime, though.
The amendment of Labour Code effective as of 1st of January 2019 has highly affected the regulation in relation to overtime.
In general, the total annual amount of overtime is 250 hours regarding full-time employees. The rule shall be proportionally applied, in case an employment relationship started during the year, was established for a determined period or only for part-time.
The amount shall be increased in two ways:
- with a collective contract (only up to 300 hours p.a.)
- with a written agreement between parties extra 150 hours can be ordered above the 250 hours mentioned before (it is also called “voluntary overtime”)
If the collective contract regulates the increasing amount of overtime up to 300 hours, only additionally 100 hours can be the subject of written agreement with the employee instead of 150.
The basics of written agreement between parties regarding the voluntary overtime is the volunteering and the concurrence of will. The employee must not be forced to establish this agreement. The voluntary overtime can be ordered unilaterally by the employer, without the approval of the employee.
The agreement is not an obligation for the employer to order the extraordinary working hours, it only provides the opportunity to do so. Thus, it can happen that the employer will use neither the whole amount, nor any of the overtime. In this case the employee is not entitled to receive any compensation.
The agreement can be established anytime during the year and the employee has the opportunity to terminate the contract until the end of calendar year. The termination cannot be sanctioned from the side of employer and it cannot be the reason of resignation or adverse legal consequences.
The voluntary overtime has registration obligations from the side of employer:
- the agreements need to be registered and recorded
- the voluntary overtime shall be recorded separately in the timesheets.
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