# Overtime and Working Time Directive

ShiftTracker checks two UK Working Time rules whenever a shift is assigned — a 48-hour week and 11 hours' rest between shifts. Both raise warnings you can override rather than blocks. The per-employee opt-out changes the wording of the warning and nothing else. Overtime is a separate calculation with its own threshold, and it is not 48 hours.

## What is actually checked?

Six things, every time somebody is put on a shift. Three of them stop you; the rest only warn.

| Check | Outcome | What you see |
|---|---|---|
| Overlapping shift | Blocked | *Employee is already scheduled for an overlapping shift* |
| Approved leave over the date | Blocked | *Employee is on approved {type} leave from {start} to {end}.* |
| Fewer than 11 hours since the previous shift | Warning | *Less than 11 hours rest between shifts (UK Working Time Regulations). Employee consent required.* |
| Fewer than 11 hours before the next shift | Warning | *New shift would leave less than 11 hours rest before next scheduled shift. Employee consent required.* |
| Over 48 hours in the week, no opt-out | Warning | *Exceeds 48 hours per week limit (UK Working Time Regulations). Employee must sign a WTD opt-out form before proceeding.* |
| Over 48 hours in the week, opt-out on file | Warning | *Exceeds 48h/week (UK WTD). Employee has a signed opt-out on file — override permitted.* |

Two more warnings fire from the employee's own declared availability — *Employee marked themselves as unavailable on this day of the week* and *Shift falls outside the employee's declared availability window*.

One hard block anywhere in the list makes the whole attempt un-overridable. A set of warnings alone can be pushed through.

The week the 48-hour check uses runs **Sunday to Saturday** and counts every shift the employee holds anywhere in the organisation, not just at the site you are looking at. It counts shifts in **scheduled**, **confirmed**, **in progress** and **completed**.

It is a calendar week, not the 17-week rolling reference period the regulations describe. The code says so itself, in a `TODO`. If you need the statutory average you will have to work it out outside the platform.

## Where do you see it before you assign?

On the roster's **Employees** view. Switch the toggle from **Patterns** to **Employees** and the grid grows an **Hours** column, one figure per person for the week on screen:

| Colour | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Grey | 40 hours or fewer |
| Amber | Over 40, up to and including 48 — approaching the limit |
| Red, with a warning icon | Over 48, with no opt-out on file |
| Blue, labelled **opted out** | Over 48, with an active opt-out |

![The roster on Week with the row toggle set to Employees, showing one week at one site. Each row is a named officer with their employee number and job title, their shifts laid out across Monday to Sunday as Gatehouse Day 07:00 – 19:00 and Gatehouse Night 19:00 – 07:00 tiles, and a total in the Hours column on the right. Four of the five totals are grey or amber — 48.0h, 24.0h, 44.0h, 48.0h — and one, Callum Boyd on 60.0h, is red with a warning icon beneath it. One otherwise empty cell carries a pink absence marker.](/docs/img/roster-employee-hours.png)

Note that 48.0h reads amber, not red. The check is *more than* 48, so exactly 48 is within the limit.

That column adds up only the shifts loaded into the view — the selected site, for the selected week. The check that runs when you assign counts the whole organisation, so a person showing 36 hours at one site can still trip the 48-hour warning because of shifts elsewhere.

## How does the opt-out work?

It is a per-employee flag, and it changes the message rather than the rule.

1. Open **People → Employees** and the person's record.
2. Go to the **HR** tab and find **Working Time Directive**, described as *UK 48-hour weekly working limit opt-out (employee must sign to opt out)*.
3. Tick **WTD 48-hour opt-out signed**. Today's date is filled into **Signed date** automatically.
4. **Save Changes**.

Unticking it later records a cancellation date rather than erasing the history, and the opt-out counts as active until that date has passed — a cancellation dated in the future leaves the opt-out in force until then.

Be clear about what this buys you. Both the opted-out and the not-opted-out cases are warnings, both are overridable, and the assignment can be forced either way. The opt-out changes the colour of the badge, the wording of the warning, and your paperwork. It does not unlock anything the platform would otherwise refuse.

## How do you override a warning?

The conflict dialog lists each problem with a badge reading **Blocked**, **Override allowed** or **Warning**, and a footer note: *Overrides apply to UK Working Time warnings only.* If every problem is overridable, an **Override and assign** button appears.

Pressing it assigns the shift and appends an override note to the shift.

One caveat about the audit trail. The server requires a reason before it will accept an override, but no screen ever asks you for one — the roster sends a fixed string. Every override from the roster is therefore recorded with the same wording, and the note cannot tell you why a particular breach was accepted. Keep the real justification wherever you keep the signed opt-out.

Reassigning an existing shift is looser still. It has no override screen at all, so warning-level problems pass without a dialog and only the hard blocks are refused.

## What counts as overtime?

Something different, and not tied to any of the above.

The figure you can actually see is the **OT Hrs** column on **Reports → Payroll**. It splits each employee's hours per ISO week: up to 40 hours is regular, everything above 40 is overtime. That threshold is 40, not 48 — the overtime line and the Working Time limit are unrelated numbers that happen to sit near each other.

The report defaults to the current calendar month, with **This Month**, **Last Month** and **Last 3 Months** as quick ranges, and **Export** writes the same figures to CSV.

Three things do not exist, and it is better to know now than to hunt for them.

**There is no overtime rate.** The arbitration records carry an overtime rate and an overtime pay column, and both are written as zero on every row. No screen sets a multiplier and no calculation applies one. **Ad Hoc Overtime** on the arbitration edit dialog is a flag that is stored and displayed; it feeds no pay figure.

**There is no Working Time report.** Nothing lists 48-hour breaches, rest violations or overrides. The **Hours** column on the roster and the warnings at assignment are the whole of the monitoring.

**There are no configurable thresholds.** 48 hours, 11 hours and the 40-hour overtime line are fixed constants. There is no setting for any of them under **Settings → Workforce**, **Settings → General** or anywhere else.

## What about agency officers?

Officers are checked too, and the limit is per officer rather than fixed. An officer's roster record carries a maximum weekly hours value, defaulting to 48, and exceeding it warns *Exceeds max {n}h/week limit. Officer override required.*

Two differences from employees are worth holding on to. The officer's week runs **Monday to Sunday**, not Sunday to Saturday, so the two populations are measured against different weeks. And the officer's own cap is set by the officer in their portal, not by you.

## If it goes wrong

**The assignment was refused outright and there was no override button.** One of the problems was a hard block — an overlapping shift, or approved leave. Neither can be overridden; move the leave or the other shift first.

**You expected a 48-hour warning and did not get one.** The check fires above 48, so exactly 48.0 passes. It also uses a Sunday-to-Saturday week, which will not match your pay week if yours starts on a Monday.

**The roster shows a person under 48 hours but the assignment warned anyway.** The roster column is scoped to one site and one week; the check is organisation-wide. Look at the person's own schedule rather than the site roster.

**Bulk assignment let an officer past their weekly cap.** The officer cap is only evaluated on single assignments. The batch path used by bulk assignment checks employees only.

**Night-work limits and young-worker rules.** Neither is implemented. There is no night-hours calculation and no age gate anywhere in the platform, including on the opt-out itself, which the regulations restrict to workers over 18. Those controls have to live in your own procedures.

## Related

- [Scheduled vs actual vs arbitrated times](/docs/concepts/scheduled-actual-and-arbitrated-times)
- [Four ways to fill an open shift](/docs/concepts/four-ways-to-fill-an-open-shift)
- [Recurring shift patterns](/docs/organisation/recurring-shift-patterns)
- [Account setup](/docs/organisation/account-setup)