The obligation for companies to keep a record of the hours worked by their workers, one of the main innovations in the field of employment in the last legislature, is now in force. This regulation was approved by the Cabinet on 8 March and published in the Official State Gazette (BOE) on 12 March.
The compulsory recording of working hours is the obligation for companies to have an effective control of the number of hours worked by their employees. This, as specified in the BOE, must be "reliable", i.e. the data stored must correspond to the hours worked by the employee. This mechanism should record the time of entry and exit of each worker and should be negotiated, as far as possible, with the legal representation of the workers. The data must be stored for a period of four years and can only be accessed by authorised managers of the company and the employee.
The day register comes into force on Sunday 12 May 2019. That is, from that day onwards, a labour inspector can go to any workplace and request a record of the hours worked by each worker and the times of entry and exit of each worker. However, the Ministry of Labour has acknowledged in a statement that the labour inspectorate will grant a margin to companies that do not have a timetable control, but can demonstrate that they are negotiating the mechanism with the workers.
One of the indispensable elements is that the mechanism by which a company controls its workers' schedules complies with the requirements set out in the data protection law. If the company uses an application for this purpose, it must ensure that it complies with it. The data must be stored for a period of four years and can only be accessed by authorised managers of the company and the employee.
Effective working time is, in theory, the time that an employee spends during his or her working day on the actual tasks of his or her workplace. It does not include breaks or rest periods, such as lunch or leave time. However, in the absence of a regulatory roll-out, the company and the company committee may negotiate the inclusion or exclusion of these hours or minutes within actual working time.
Compulsory time control BOE March 8
15 September 2020