3.13 Working Hours and Rest Days
Standard: Positive workplace standards include providing reasonable work hours and rest days.
National and local laws usually set maximum work hours and minimum rest days. Everyone shall be
allowed at least one day off every seven days, and any overtime worked shall be voluntary. If local law
allows, people may voluntarily work overtime on rest days, provided that they are allowed at least one
day off within the next seven days. Continuous working days are never to exceed 21 days without a
rest day.
Expectation: Ensure working hours, rest breaks, and meal breaks fall within legal requirements. Have a
defined workweek that is communicated to and understood by all and allowed at least one day off (at
least 24 consecutive hours) every seven days. If local law allows, people may voluntarily work overtime
on rest days, provided they have one day off within the next seven days.
• Free from working more than 21 consecutive days.
• Free from working 18+ consecutive hours
• Total working hours inclusive of overtime are within allowable limits under applicable law and/
or collective bargaining agreement
• Total working hours do not exceed 80 hours in a work week, regardless of law.
• Maintains at least 12 months of complete, accurate records without discrepancies, to verify
compliance with working hour/rest day requirements, and has a system in place to record
working hours accurately and consistently. Examples may include working time clocks, time in/out
recording systems or valid time in/out time sheets.
• At least one day off in seven days. unless law is more stringent (i.e., 1 day off within each work
week; one day at beginning of week one, and one day off at beginning or end of week two)
• Manual time system is used and people acknowledge personally the manual recording of
actual working hours by signature or initials at least once a week. For hand-written
attendance records, actual time in and time out must be included and all must sign and
acknowledge at least once every week (“tick” or other symbols are not acceptable).
• Management Systems are in place to ensure compliance to standard.
Working hours are no more than 60 hours per week (including overtime), unless the law
is more stringent. Each facility should have a process for identifying level loading/ peak
constraints to minimize overtime hours.