New act on registration of working hours: Many AU staff will now be required to register their hours, but not all

Under a new act that will soon come into force, as a general rule, employees at Danish workplaces will be required to register their working hours.

Like the other universities in Denmark, Aarhus University will adhere to the recommendations of the Danish Employee and Competence Agency with regard to how the act should be interpreted and implemented in the university sector.

For Aarhus University employees, what this means is that research and teaching staff in general, as well as people managers, can be exempted from the requirement to register their working hours. However, according to the agency, such exemptions may only be granted on the background of an individual assessment on the part of management, and employees who are exempted must receive a supplement to their employment contract.

As a rule, all other AU employees will be required to register their working hours under the act; this includes the majority of staff in technical/administrative positions. For many staff, registering working hours is nothing new. For others, this will be a new routine. AU is currently working on a form staff can use on which total daily working hours have been pre-registered, so they will only need to register deviations from their schedule.

The act has been introduced to protect the rights of workers and help ensure that employers comply with applicable regulations on working hours. University Director Kristian Thorn emphasises that the need for a sensible work-life balance still applies to everyone – even if you are not covered by the requirement to register your working hours:

“Regardless of whether or not staff are now required to register their working hours, achieving a good balance between work tasks and working hours is still a question of dialogue between individual managers and staff members.”

To be implemented after the summer holidays

The university was only informed of the possibility of exempting certain staff very late in the process of implementing the new rules. To ensure that this process proceeds smoothly at Aarhus University, it’s been decided to postpone implementation until after the summer holidays. At this time, staff and managers will receive more information, and the liaison committees will be involved.