Time tracking at work - Very detailed information accessible by several people

[SebWotan 22]

Hello

 

My company is implementing working hour tracking in our German office. This is a legal requirement in order to ensure that working law about working time, rests, overtime are followed. This is fine.

However the actual implementation is making me uncomfortable:

- Basically we need to enter what we do and the time we do it: for example: 8:00 to 9:20: billable software development - 9:20-11:00: non billable software development, 11:15-12:00 : support 12:30-13:30: meeting 13:40-14:30: planning, etc ...

- The summary but also detailed entries will be visible to : my direct manager, the office manager, the CFO, the CEO. So 4 people, in a company of 25 people and for an office of 9 people. 

 

We have billable project now (we did not before) and I understand the need to record time for those billable project, but I am uncomfortable with so many people having access to both the summaries (worked hour per week, billable worked hour per week) but also the details. I expressed that and was told this will not change. 

 

What does German law says about the specific of working time tracking ? 

 

Thanks.

 

[HH_Sailor 3,152]

Used to have to do something similar in my old firm.

BUT

we only entered the hours worked on support, project A, project B etc.

 

1) time started and time ended was excluded

2) whole team  was aggregated. No one saw that I did 4hrs on Monday or whatever.

    Only that the team did xy hrs

 

Sounds too much like overkill and I  think the German word

for your lawyer / union / Betriebsrat is  " leistungs und verhaltenskontrolle "

 

 

[LukeSkywalker 7,223]

I record my office time and is simply called Kommen/Gehen, e.g. 09:00-17:30. Automatically 30 minutes is deducted as break, so 8 hours working time. My contract is 7,5 hours, so I have 0,5 hours overtime which I can take as Gleitzeit (time in lieu). Next to these office times, I record my billable work on project level, but just the aggregates per day. We also have some internal projects like Training.  We have a workers’ council and part of IG Metall.

[LeonG 14,546]

I was working for a company where you had to write time sheets daily.  It would say how many hours you worked on project x, y and z in increments of 0.25 hrs. or that you did some internal office work like one of my jobs was booking everybody's time sheets in the system.  It was also entered if someone was sick or on vacation.  A lot of people had access to this system.  Surely every person who was entering them in the system as well as all managers.  

 

The system for punching in and out was not connected to this system although I think that payroll would have compared this off and on, not that you are billing 8 hrs. on projects while working 10 or reversed.  As far as I know, only the payroll had access to the punch clock times.  The punch clock was set to round off quite liberally.  It would never give you overtime if you came early and would not start counting it at the end of the day until you had 30 min. plus.  If you were 1 min. late, it would shave 15 to 30 minutes off your time.  I strongly suspected this of not being legal but I could never find anything about it online.  

[catjones 1,531]

Usually, time tracking is used for accounting so that costs can be applied to the correct account.  Your system is going beyond accounting and into "use of time" which is more of a management issue.  It seems silly and anal considering your entire company can fit in one room, but you're in germany.  Ask your manager where you should  enter the time it's taking you to enter the time you're taking to enter your time.

[SebWotan 22]

Thanks for the answer. 

I agree clearly with "silly and anal". Interestingly we are in Germany but the management is american (located in another country of Europe) so the local culture might not apply here. 

I did ask my manager if there was an entry "enter my timesheet" but this was not well met. 

Well I do not plan for the time being to involve legal or anything, I just simply put my concern in writing this morning and send them to my CEO (we are small enough that this is OK). 

But good to see the local experience is quite different, more in line with what I expected. 

[karin_brenig 589]

well, I have been reporting about my time spent on projects at work ever since I started, in 1978.

Whether this was for internal cost accounting, or for external billing of customers, I really had no problem doing it. I actually enjoy being watched  and being allowed to brag about the amount of work I got done. I never bothered about whether it's "legal" - I'm always happy to document my worth to the company in detail.

 

When one employer started to demand we report in 15 minute time-slots per day, though, accounting was taking a lot of time - and that time could have been better used on some real value generating activity. To give my boss a hint about that I started reserving the last 30 minutes of every day on my calendar for a project I called "tracking my time". Some colleagues followed suit. It worked. After just a few months we were back to hourly reporting per week, lumping the smaller tasks together under one generic "general organization" project. 

[travelerworker 73]

hahah its like back to the future...welcome to 1972!

If I were you i'd look for a job in a more modern and 21 century company