On November 4, 2015, the Federal Council passed the adaption of the rules for timekeeping. New is that businesses are exempt from the duty to record working hours in respect of employees with a gross income of over CHF 120,000, so far as this is provided for in a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) and the employees have substantial autonomy with regard to their working hours. Even for less well-paid but autonomous employees the Federal Council is providing for an easing of the timekeeping obligation.

The revision should relieve an administrative burden on businesses. The regulation is tentatively scheduled to enter into force on January 1, 2016.

1. Utter renunciation of the timekeeping duty only possible if CBA exists

Art. 73a ArGV 1 introduces the possibility, based on a CBA, to waive the obligation of time-keeping. This is possible for workers, who have a large degree of autonomy in their work, fix their own working hours the majority of the time and, in addition, have a gross annual income of over CHF 120,000, including bonuses.

According to SECO's report, such workers must be able to freely schedule at least 50% of their working hours. In addition to an individual waiver from each affected employee, the possibility to waive the obligation of timekeeping must be expressly provided for in the CBA. The employer must further designate an internal point of contact for questions about working hours and keep a record of those employees who have waived the requirement to record working hours. Such a waiver by the employee is not final and may be revoked annually.

2. Simplified timekeeping

For workers, who can schedule a sizeable portion - according to SECO at least 25% - of their working hours freely, Article 73b ArGV 1 provides for new simplified timekeeping. Consequently, only the total number of hours worked per day must be documented. For night and Sunday work, the beginning and end of the hours worked must also be noted.

The introduction of simplified timekeeping does not require a CBA. An appropriate collective agreement can be agreed upon between the employer and the employees' representatives or, if there is none, with the majority of employees.

In businesses with fewer than 50 employees, the simplified timekeeping can also be negotiated individually. In this case, the regulation requires the documentation of a year-end discussion with the respective employee regarding the workload.

The agreement on simplified timekeeping must, in any case, include provisions on the compliance with the legal requirements for work and rest periods. The collective agreement must also specify a joint process to review compliance with the agreement.

3. Assessment of the new regulations

The relaxation of rules for recording working hours is to be welcomed. The new rules are a long overdue response to developments of the working environment, which increasingly provide for a temporally and spatially flexible framework. To fix the resulting discrepancy between the strict requirements for recording working hours and the reality of everyday work, the introduction of more flexible arrangements for recording working hours was unavoidable. However, the requirements set out in this regulation are substantial.

Because of the requirements to be fulfilled, the exceptions will apply only to a limited group of employees. According to estimates by the Federal Council it is likely that less than 10% of employees will actually meet the requirements, therefore, for the majority of businesses the duty of timekeeping under Art. 46 will remain. It must also be assumed that, in the future, compliance with the duty to record working hours will be checked more frequently.