Time tracking in Switzerland: duty, exceptions, and the easy way

The rule: the employer documents

Article 46 of the Swiss Labour Act requires employers to keep the registers and documents the authorities need for enforcement. What they must contain is set out in article 73 of Ordinance 1 to the Labour Act: among other things the daily and weekly working time actually performed including compensatory and excess work, its position, meaning start and end, and breaks of half an hour or more. The records must be kept for five years.

The duty falls on the employer. The employer may delegate the recording to employees, for example through an app, a terminal or a spreadsheet, but remains responsible for it taking place and being correct. That applies to home office as well.

Important for context: the Labour Act does not apply to everyone. Employees in senior management positions, large parts of public administration and a few sectors are exempt. For the large majority of employees in private companies it applies.

The exceptions since 2016

Because full recording was felt as paperwork in many offices, the Federal Council introduced two exceptions in early 2016.

Waiving recording (art. 73a ArGV 1). Possible when three conditions are met together: a gross annual salary above CHF 120,000 including bonuses, high autonomy in organising work and working hours, and a collective labour agreement that provides for the waiver. On top comes an individual waiver agreement that can be cancelled yearly. Without a collective agreement it is not possible, which rules out most employees.

Simplified recording (art. 73b ArGV 1). Employees who can set a substantial part of their working time themselves may record only the total duration per day, without start, end and breaks. This needs an agreement with the employee representation or, in businesses with fewer than 50 employees, a written agreement with each individual. Night and Sunday work must still be recorded with start and end.

Everyone else: full recording.

What it means for you

Overtime and excess hours are two different things. Overtime is hours beyond your contractual working time up to the statutory maximum (45 or 50 hours per week, depending on the sector). It falls under the Code of Obligations, art. 321c CO: it is paid with a 25 percent supplement or, with your agreement, compensated within a reasonable period by time off of at least equal length; your employment contract or a collective agreement may provide otherwise, up to waiving the supplement. Excess hours are everything above the statutory maximum and fall under the Labour Act, art. 12 and 13 LA: they are permitted only within narrow limits and must be paid with a 25 percent supplement unless, with your agreement, they are compensated by time off within 14 weeks. The often-quoted threshold of 60 hours per year below which no supplement is owed applies only to office staff, technical and other salaried employees and sales staff in large retail businesses; for everyone else excess hours carry the supplement from the first hour. Which rule applies to you therefore depends on your job and your contract.

You have to prove it. Whoever claims overtime has to prove it, hour by hour. If your employer fails in the recording duty, a court can ease the burden of proof; do not rely on it. Your own, promptly kept records are the tool of choice.

Five years. Wage claims, and overtime is one, expire after five years. Whoever has no records today cannot prove anything in five years.

Right to inspect. You may inspect the working-time records your employer keeps about you. Use that regularly, not only in a dispute.

The easy way

The best record is the one that creates itself. For employees with a fixed workplace that means an app that notices by geofencing when you arrive at the office and when you leave, and derives start, end and net from that, day by day. At the end of the month the timesheet as a PDF, ready to sign, next to an overtime balance that accounts for vacation and public holidays.

Three things every solution should do, app or spreadsheet:

1. Record promptly, not reconstruct the week on Friday.
2. Export, so the record stays with you and not only in the employer’s system.
3. Protect the data. Working hours and workplace are personal data; they belong on your device, not on someone else’s server.

WorkFlow, the app behind this website, is made for exactly that: free, no account, no cloud, data on the phone. It does not replace your employer’s recording; it gives you your own.

In short

Do I have to record as an employee? Only if your employer delegates it to you. Your own record alongside is voluntary and wise.

Does this apply to home office? Yes. The place does not change the duty.

May my employer record my location? Only if it is necessary and proportionate for the recording, and only transparently. An app that keeps the location on your device and sends it nowhere is the unproblematic case here.