The overtime hours are one of these mechanisms: when a full-time employee’s working time exceeds 35 hours in a week, the hours worked beyond this threshold constitute overtime (2).
Example: if the employee has worked 38 hours during the week, they have completed 3 overtime hours (weekly working time – 35-hour threshold = number of weekly overtime hours).
These overtime hours are counted per week (3). By convention, the work week starts on Monday at 0:00 and ends on Sunday at 24:00 (4).
For certain sectors and trades (tourism, etc.), this weekly accounting of time is not well suited. Fluctuations in business activity may require an employee to work less than 35 hours in one week and considerably more in other weeks.
It is in these situations that the work-time arrangement mechanism comes into play.
Legally, we speak of “work-time arrangement over a period longer than a week,” since the employee’s working time will no longer be counted weekly, but over a longer period (2 weeks, 4 weeks, 1 year, etc.).
When the work-time arrangement is put in place, by exception, the duration of work and the employee’s overtime are therefore no longer counted on a weekly basis, but over the newly defined period (the “reference period”) (5).
How to implement the work-time arrangement?
By unilateral decision of the employer
The employer may, on its own, implement a work-time arrangement that extends beyond the week. This is referred to as a unilateral decision of the employer.
However, its leeway is limited (6):
- if it employs fewer than 50 workers, it may implement a distribution over a maximum of 9 weeks;
- if it employs 50 employees or more, this distribution can only cover a maximum of 4 weeks.
By collective agreement
When the work-time arrangement is established by a collective agreement, the possibilities for distributing the duration of work over a period longer than a week are broader.
Indeed, in this case the arrangement can extend over a period of up to 1 year (this is called the “annualization of work time”), or even 3 years, if a sectoral agreement provides for it (7).
Example: when the reference period is annual, overtime will be any hours worked beyond 1,607 hours (8).
The collective agreement must specify this reference period and must provide certain provisions specific to the work-time arrangement (notice periods and timings for changes in duration or schedules, whether part-time employees are taken into account, etc.).
Counting overtime, employment contracts, smoothing of remuneration, pay slips… Find all the essential information about the work-time arrangement on Juritravail.com !
References:
(1) Article L3121-27 of the French Labour Code
(2) Article L3121-8 of the French Labour Code
(3) Article L3121-29 of the French Labour Code
(4) Article L3122-1 of the French Labour Code
(5) Article L3121-41 of the French Labour Code
(6) Article L3121-45 of the French Labour Code
(7) Article L3121-44 of the French Labour Code
(8) Article L3121-41 of the French Labour Code
