Working hours in call centres: what applies to shifts, screen breaks and Sundays

The limits in a call centre

The Working Hours Act has no exception of its own for call centres, neither for the daily maximum nor for the rest period or Sunday. The special feature lies elsewhere: the phone system generates data about every person by itself. How time tracking stays separate from it and why a works council has a say is on the industry page for call centres. This article is about the time itself.

Breaks and screen interruptions

Anyone working more than six hours is entitled to a 30-minute rest break, beyond nine hours to 45 minutes, divisible into parts of at least 15 minutes (section 4 ArbZG). A break is only what is fixed in advance and free of work. Anyone who has to stay at the desk and take calls if needed is not on a break.

A second rule is often overlooked. The Workplaces Ordinance obliges the employer to interrupt work at screen equipment, in particular with other tasks or regular recovery time (annex no. 6.1(2) ArbStättV). It does not set a fixed number of minutes. These interruptions are not rest breaks within the meaning of section 4 ArbZG and are not counted towards them if other work is done during them.

Logging in, starting up, wrap-up: what counts as working time

Under section 2(1) ArbZG, working time is the time from the start to the end of work without rest breaks. If the call centre requires the computer to be running, the headset on and the log-in to the system complete when the shift starts, work begins with these steps and not with the first call. The same applies at the end to the wrap-up of the last call.

For the records this means: start and end come from time tracking, not from the log-in time of the phone system. The system measures when someone was available, not when someone was working.

Service hours in two shifts

A hotline from 7 am to 10 pm usually runs in early and late shifts. Anyone working until 10 pm may start again at 9 am the next day at the earliest (section 5(1) ArbZG). Switching from the late to the early shift from 7 am is therefore ruled out; the law has no shortened rest period for call centres.

A hotline staffed at night quickly turns the people involved into night workers: night time is 11 pm to 6 am, night work any work with more than two hours of it, and a night worker is anyone who normally works nights on rotating shifts or does night work on at least 48 days a year (section 2(3) to (5) ArbZG). The rules of section 6 ArbZG then apply, with averaging within one month, a right to health checks and a premium or days off.

Sunday: no general permission

On Sundays and public holidays, employees may not be employed in principle (section 9 ArbZG). Call centres are not on the list of exceptions in section 10 ArbZG. Hesse had generally permitted call centres to work on Sundays by ordinance. The Federal Administrative Court declared this rule invalid on 26 November 2014 (6 CN 1.13).

Sunday duty is therefore only possible if the specific work itself falls under an exception, for instance as part of an emergency and rescue service (section 10(1) no. 1 ArbZG), or if the supervisory authority permits it in the individual case (section 13 ArbZG). Clarify this before the first Sunday roster, not afterwards.

Home office agents

The Working Hours Act applies at the desk at home just as in the open-plan office. According to the prevailing view, even a work message answered in the evening interrupts the rest period, and the eleven hours start again afterwards. In the home office there is no team lead watching, so the record carries the load: start, end and break, clocked by the person themselves.

Who has to record working time in a call centre

Call centres are not on the list of industries in section 2a SchwarzArbG. The duty under section 17 MiLoG therefore applies to mini-jobbers: the start, end and duration of every working day by the end of the seventh calendar day, kept for two years. Under section 1 MiLoDokV, only spouses, registered partners, children and parents of the employer who work in the business are exempt.

For everyone else, working time beyond eight hours per working day has to be recorded (section 16(2) ArbZG), and since the Federal Labour Court's order of 13 September 2022 employers have to record working time in principle, without a prescribed form. Customs has listed call centres as a branch of their own in its inspection statistics since 2017. In 2025 the Financial Monitoring Unit for Illicit Employment checked 7 employers and 70 persons there.

Recording working time, separate from the phone system

In MetronHR agents clock in at the terminal with an NFC card in the office, and in the browser or via the app in the home office. What is recorded is start, end and break, to the minute, without rounding, and not call duration or wrap-up time. Every person sees their own times.

In the roster of the Professional plan, MetronHR reports before publication when less than the configured rest period lies between late and early shift, or the daily or weekly limit or the maximum number of consecutive working days is exceeded. At the end of the month, hours per person are in the monthly Excel overview and in the payroll file for DATEV.