Despite the judgement of the European Court of Justice from 14 May 2019 obliging employers with a certain number of employees to set up an “objective, reliable and accessible” system for recording daily working hours, there is no legal obligation to do so in many European countries.

At first glance, one might think that a legal obligation to record working hours contradicts modern leadership requiring employers to grant their employees increasingly more mobility and self-determination while imposing less control – amongst others, through home office arrangements, digitalization and more flexible working time models.

This is very true, but the one does not necessarily exclude the other. According to a study published in 2019, recording working hours obviously contributes to a more straightforward and healthier manager-employee relationship. For instance, monitoring the maximum daily working hours and documenting overtime are very meaningful for both parties. There is no room for annoying discussions, as clearly defined working time rules avoid unpleasant disputes. And not to forget—avoiding overtime hours also helps the employer to reduce labour costs.

It is not uncommon that a lack of documentation of hours worked results in legal disputes—something that can be effectively avoided using a system like ZEUS® Time & Attendance.

Apart from giving employers peace of mind that payroll is accurate, a modern Workforce Management system provides a whole bunch of other benefits to both employers and employees; for instance, in the field of Staff Scheduling: a computerized system is fair and objective taking into account individual labour contracts, legal requirements as well as personal preferences, which is particularly important when it comes to scheduling unpopular shifts like night or weekend shifts in manufacturing or in the health care sector.

Hence, modern workforce scheduling systems, such as ZEUS® Staff Scheduling, ensure optimal coverage of the staffing needs at all times with due consideration of qualifications, current time totals, overtime accounts, planned absences and much more. For example, in case of unplanned, short-term absences of staff members, automatic notifications instantly inform supervisors and team members allowing to reassign open shifts in a transparent way thanks to the intuitive shift offer and shift swap functionality offered by ZEUS® mobile.

Furthermore, up-to-date Workforce Management caters for job and activity tracking, allows to carry out in-depth analyses and to perform cost control on activities, projects or production orders. With the ZEUS® Job Costing module, operating processes and working hours become transparent. By creating considerable optimisation and cost reduction potentials, this ensures that no time nor money is wasted, especially in challenging times like these.