Rolling out time tracking: model, responsibilities and timetable

Before introducing time tracking, agree on working time models, balance limits, approvals and the data needed for payroll. A limited rollout can be quick. A broader rollout depends on the people involved, integrations and how much working practices change.

Plan the pilot with the recording methods comparison and the payroll trial transfer checklist.

The scope decides how many decisions you need

The scope is worth choosing first, because it determines both the number of decisions and who is needed around the table. Three common scopes:

The first scope is a limited start where practices stay as they are and only the way time is recorded changes. The third is a project in which the way work is done changes too: how overtime arises, the route by which an absence is reported and the schedule of the pay period. The widest form calls for repeated communication and a pilot phase in which the practices are tested with one team.

The content of the working-time records is the same in all three. Under section 32 of the Working Hours Act, the employer must record the hours worked and the compensation paid for them per employee, and the records must show either the hours of regular working time, the additional work, overtime, emergency work and Sunday work hours and the compensation paid for them or all hours worked, and separately the overtime, emergency work and Sunday work hours and their increment components. Which of the two is chosen is the first decision of the rollout: it determines what has to be distinguished at the point of entry.

Decisions to make before the first entry

• The working-time models and the day they take effect. Every employee needs a model that states the regular working time for the day and the week. If there are several models (office, shift work, part-time), you also decide who belongs to which and from which day.
• Entry types and day types. A short list is enough at first: work, remote work, travel, training and absences. The types are created to match what payroll separates onto lines of its own.
• The flexitime limits. Flexitime is agreed between the employer and the employee (section 12 of the Working Hours Act), and the matters to be agreed include at least the uninterrupted fixed working time, the daily flexitime limit and the placement of the flexitime, the placement of the rest periods, and the maximum accumulation of excess and shortfall hours. The daily flexitime is at most four hours. At the end of the monitoring period the accumulated excess may be at most 60 hours and the shortfall at most 20 hours, and the regular weekly working time may average at most 40 hours over a four-month monitoring period.
• The absence types and the reporting route. Who records a sick leave: the employee, the supervisor or HR. This is the most common place where the old and the new practice are left overlapping.
• The approval chain and the due date. Who approves whose hours, by which day the period has been approved and who approves the supervisor’s own time.
• The pay period and the cut-off day. From which day the new system produces the payroll data and which period is still run the old way.
• The working-time bank, if one is introduced. Under section 14 of the Working Hours Act, introducing a working-time bank is agreed in writing between the employer and the shop steward or another representative of the employees, or the staff, and the agreement must cover at least the items that can be transferred, the saving limits, the termination of the bank and the principles for taking the time off. The balance may grow by at most 180 hours during a calendar year, and the total balance may correspond to at most six months’ working time. The agreement is made before the rollout, because it determines what is collected in the system in the first place.
• The shift roster, if the placement of working time varies. Section 30 of the Working Hours Act requires a shift roster (in everyday language, a shift schedule) for every workplace, showing when the regular working time begins and ends and the times of the breaks, and it must be given to the employees in writing at least a week before the period begins. Where average working time is used, an adjustment plan under section 29 is drawn up as well, showing the regular working time of each week.

Besides the law, the collective agreement is a basis for these decisions. Under section 34 of the Working Hours Act, a national collective agreement may agree otherwise on, among other things, regular working hours, the limits of flexitime and the monitoring period, overtime compensation, rest periods and the shift roster, and a generally applicable agreement is followed in a non-organised company as well. Find out what your own sector’s agreement says before the working-time models and the flexitime limits are entered into the settings.

Flexitime is an agreement, not a system setting. Entering the flexitime limits in the settings does not replace the agreement required by section 12. If the limits change as part of the rollout, the agreements are updated at the same time.

Responsibilities are shared out before the start

Assign an owner to resolve open questions and keep the rollout schedule current. Agree approval deadlines and deputies with managers so the first payroll period is ready on time.

Consulting and informing the staff before the rollout

Under section 21 of the Act on the Protection of Privacy in Working Life, the purpose of monitoring employees by technical means, its introduction and the methods used in it fall within the dialogue referred to in the Co-operation Act. The dialogue under the Co-operation Act concerns companies that regularly employ at least 20 people; in companies with 20–49 employees it is conducted in the lighter form set out in section 7a of the Act. In smaller companies the employer must, before making the decision, give the employees or their representatives an opportunity to be heard on the same matters.

After the procedure, section 21 requires the employer to define the purpose of the monitoring and the methods used, and to inform the employees of the purpose, the introduction and the methods of the monitoring. In the rollout timetable this means two separate events: the consultation before the decision and the notice after it. The date and the participants of both are worth recording.

The employee is told three things, and they are worth writing into the same notice:

1. What is collected. The start and end times of working time, the breaks, the entry type and the absences; on a punch device, also the place and time of the punch.
2. Who sees what. The employee’s own supervisor, HR and payroll see the hours; a colleague does not see another person’s entries. Under section 32 of the Working Hours Act, an employee is entitled on request to a written statement of the entries concerning them in the shift rosters and the working-time records, and the employer must on request supply a copy of the working-time records to the occupational safety and health authority and to the shop steward, elected representative or other representative representing the employee.
3. How an error is corrected. Who it is reported to, within what time the correction is made and what happens to a period that has already been approved.

Give employees room to ask questions and try the system. Explain how the data is used, how to check their own time and where to get help. Feedback during rollout also reveals whether the chosen recording method is awkward in practice.

Reconcile balances and preserve historical records

There are three items that move over: the flexitime balances, the accrued holiday and the balance of any working-time bank. All of them get the same cut-off day, and the balance is calculated from the situation on that day.

Let each employee check their opening balances and report discrepancies. Document corrections and their connection to earlier records. Opening balances are hours and days; a negative balance is not itself a monetary debt.

Historical working-time records can be migrated or kept in a separate readable archive. Preserve their content, employee-level detail and traceability of corrections. The legal retention duty continues regardless of the system. Export the necessary data before the old service contract ends.

The hours worked during the current year are moved over when the calculation needs them: the adjustment period of average working time and the yearly balance of the working-time bank are such cases. Otherwise the balance on the cut-off day is enough.

Example of a four-week rollout

The schedule below is one possible approach. Align it with the payroll period and allow more time for imports, integrations and piloting in a larger rollout. Move on only after checking the results of the previous stage.

The pilot week is worth keeping in the timetable even when time is short. One team’s week reveals missing entry types and wrong working-time models more cheaply than the whole staff’s week, and the members of the pilot group advise their own teams in the third week.

Fictional example: a company with 25 employees

The company has 18 office employees on flexitime (37.5 h a week, fixed hours 09:00–14:00) and 7 fitters whose working time varies and for whom a shift roster is drawn up. The scope of the rollout is the second level: entry, balances, absences and approval. Payroll is handled by an accounting firm, the pay period is a calendar month and the due date for the data is the 3rd of the month.

In this fictional comparison, three daily entries are missing and two entries use the wrong absence type. The errors are corrected before the payroll data is sent, and the instructions are updated.

The first pay period is run in parallel with the old way

Calculate the first period in both the new system and the old method using the same source data. Resolve differences before payroll. The time required depends on headcount and calculation rules. Differences may come from missing entries, working time models, absence assignments or rules in the settings.

In the second period the parallel run is dropped if the first period’s differences were fully explained. If any difference was left open, the reason is found before the next period is calculated.

Checklist

Before the first pay period:

• The way time is recorded has been chosen. The working-time records follow one of the two alternatives in section 32 of the Working Hours Act, and the items to be recorded have been named.
• Every employee has a valid working-time model for the whole period, including those who started mid-period.
• The flexitime limits have been agreed and the length of the monitoring period and the maximum accumulations have been set as agreed.
• The entry types and absence types match the payroll types and the mappings have been checked with the payroll administrator.
• The shift roster has been issued at least a week before the period begins to those whose working time is placed variably.
• The consultation has been held and recorded before the decision to go live, and the notice on the purpose and methods of the monitoring has been sent.
• The opening balances have been recorded from the situation on the cut-off day and every employee has checked their own.
• The working-time bank agreement has been made in writing, if the bank is introduced, and the transferable items and the saving limits have been written into it.
• The approval chain and the due date are known to the supervisors, and a stand-in has been named in case of absence.
• The old working-time records have been saved for the retention period in the form in which they came into being.
• The data has been produced as a test run before the due date and compared with a parallel calculation for the same period.
• The open differences have been explained and for each one it is known whether it is fixed in the data or requires a decision.