Time clocks have been in use for a very long time. In 1899 Willard Legrand Bundy invented the time clock. The first versions of the original time clocks were sold to solve “vexatious questions of recording employee time.” In 1977 the home computer was released to the market. However, in 1991 the world wide web was born, and the working environment changed for the better. Tracking the working hours of employees has been a longstanding tradition. Computer technology has become essential to the modern office. The modern time clock isn’t a heavy machine on the wall. It is a service provided by 1Time Tracking which can be easily accessed from a smartphone or work computer.
A lot has changed since 1899 to 2019 but there is an important date to remember in regards to tracking employee’s working hours. On May 12th of 2019 a new law has been introduced to the European Union. This law is called Section (9) of Article 34 of the Workers’ Statute. This law makes it mandatory in Spain, to have a system in place to track the hours worked by the staff of any company. The system in place must be able to keep a record of the working hours for the staff for 4 years. The reason for the 4-year rule is to make sure that the social security parts of the government can access the working hours.
The Section (9) of Article 34 of the Workers’ Statute came from a court case in Spain. The Court decided that it is a benefit to the employees and the employer to track the start time and the end time of very employee. As a result of this new law, the European Court of Justice judged that each member state must ensure that the working hours must be tracked. Knowledge of the number of hours worked each day and each week is essential to determine that minimum rest periods have been fulfilled.
Advocate General Pitruzzella stated that the EU member States are free to regulate which method of recording the number of hours worked each day is best for them. Each European country has the freedom to decide how they are going to record these hours. The question of who should record the workers hours was raised by the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations (BDA). They argued that the employees should record their own hours. This especially goes for the people who work flexible hours and remote workers.
Once the European countries have their preferred system in place, the companies can then implement the system in accordance with the law. However, having the system in place may not be enough. 1Time has reminders which ensure that the employee will not forget to log their working hours for that day. The modern working environment has many forms of employment. Remote workers can log the time that they have worked, to fully comply with the law. Consultants who are working temporarily can also log their working hours with 1Time.
To make the process even easier 1Time has a new feature which allows the employees to enter a start time and an end time for each day that they work. This allows the company to fully comply with Section (9) of Article 34 of the Workers’ Statute. By taking out our free 30-day trial on 1Time Tracking you can see how this new feature can you stay up to date and fully compliant with the new law. You can choose from any user base package with no credit card requirements.
