Uninterrupted rest

What it means

Uninterrupted rest is the unbroken free time an employee must get between two shifts and once a week. It is neither a rest break inside a shift nor annual leave: it is the boundary within which working time may be scheduled.

Between the end of one shift and the start of the next an adult employee is owed at least twelve hours within a 24-hour period; it may be shortened only in the cases the Labour Code lists, and against compensating rest. Weekly rest should be two consecutive days, normally the weekend.

Uninterrupted rest is not time off in lieu of overtime. Time off in lieu is paid leave that replaces the premium for extra hours worked, whereas rest is time that does not count as working time at all and is not paid. One cannot be traded for the other: rest the employee did not get cannot be paid out instead.

How it works in practice

Rest is not checked on the payslip but in the shift roster and in the attendance records. The roster has to be announced to the employee in advance, so stretching a shift after the fact does not get around the limit.

What breaks it in practice is standby duty with a call-out followed by a morning shift. A call-out during standby is work performed, the interrupted rest no longer amounts to twelve hours, and the next day has to be replanned.

Working from home blurs the line once emails and calls arrive in the evening. The Labour Code expressly allows an employee working from home office not to use work equipment during uninterrupted rest, and the employer may not penalise them for it. When setting up the rules we therefore recommend writing into the internal policy when a reply is not expected.

What to watch out for

A shift ending at 22.00 and the next starting at 06.00 leaves eight hours of rest. The Code allows that only in the cases it lists, and only against compensating rest; it is visible at a glance in the attendance records, and the labour inspectorate fines it as an administrative offence whether or not anyone came to harm.

When investigating a workplace accident the inspectorate also looks at attendance for the preceding days. If it shows the employee did not get the statutory rest, the shortened rest becomes an argument against the employer, and escaping liability for the accident becomes much harder.