Overtime work and the question of its legal regulation, no matter how simple they may seem, can easily become an extremely complex area. Especially when considering various factors such as the type of job and work environment.

The Employment Act in Serbia is not the only regulation that defines aspects of overtime work, which further complicates the situation and emphasizes the importance of a clear understanding of all relevant regulations and their proper implementation.

For that reason, we have used this article to thoroughly cover all questions and situations that may arise in practice regarding overtime work, to provide you with a complete insight into the rights you have as an employee or the duties you have as an employer.

Overtime work in the Employment Act

Overtime work is mentioned several times in the Employment Act.

It refers to any work that exceeds full-time hours, which typically range between 36 and 40 hours per week.

Additionally, overtime work should not be confused with the rescheduling of working hours, which involves adjusting working hours to meet business demands such as seasonal peaks, increased workload, or decreased production.

Regarding the main issues related to overtime work regulated by the Employment Act, they include:

• Cases where an employer can request overtime work.
• Duties of the employee regarding overtime work (e.g., when they must work longer than the prescribed time).
• Employer's obligations regarding overtime work (e.g., informing the employee).
• Duration, rescheduling, and recording of overtime work.
• Cases where overtime work cannot be assigned and to whom.
• Regulation of overtime work in specific institutions (e.g., healthcare).
• Amounts, calculation, and payment of overtime work.
• Violations related to overtime work.

In the following text, we will delve into most of these questions in detail.

When can an employer request overtime work?

An employer can request overtime work in the following cases:

• Force majeure
• Sudden increase in the volume of work
• In other cases when it becomes indispensable to complete an unplanned work within a specific deadline

Here is an example from practice related to force majeure: For instance, manufacturers of medical equipment could justifiably request overtime work from employees during the COVID-19 pandemic to deliver additional quantities of products needed by healthcare facilities.

Regarding a sudden increase in workload, these situations are common in companies that receive a large number of orders during a specific season or holiday period.

The law also allows for other unforeseeable cases where sudden work must be completed within a specific deadline. For example, marketing agencies may require their employees to work overtime to create and launch a marketing campaign for a large client who is soon launching a product in the market.

These are just some common cases in which an employer can request overtime work, and as you can see, they all rely on the element of surprise.

If the reason for requesting overtime work were known to the employer in advance, the employee could refuse such work without consequences (for example, refusal in such a case would not be considered a breach of work discipline).

Employees should also be aware of the following:

If you voluntarily work overtime, such work is not considered overtime work under the Employment Act, and the employer is not obliged to pay you an increased salary for it.

The reason for this lies in the wording of the provision itself, which specifies cases in which the employer can request overtime work, and that is solely at the employer's request.

How long can overtime work last at most?

The longest overtime work can last for up to eight hours per week, and an employee cannot work more than 12 hours per day, including overtime work.

Additionally, there is no annual limit regarding the total number of hours of overtime work.

However, it is important to note that there is one exception for employees working in jobs where reduced working hours are introduced due to the particularly strenuous, demanding, and health- damaging nature of those jobs.

In such cases, the working hours are reduced proportionally to the harmful effects of the working conditions on workability and health. Therefore, determining overtime work in these jobs would be contradictory and is not allowed by the Employment Act.

Now, you might wonder: What about on-call duty in healthcare institutions, isn't that job particularly difficult, demanding, and harmful to the health of those who perform it?

Yes, this is indeed a great question, which is regulated by a separate Act (the Act on Health Care), not the Employment Act.

More on this in one of the following paragraphs.

Overtime Work – price of labor

The price of overtime work, or the calculation of increased earnings for overtime work, is determined by adding an additional 26% of the base amount to the base rate.

Let's take, for example, he minimum wage per hour in 2024, which is 271 dinars. In this case, you would be entitled to an additional 70.46 dinars (271 dinars x 26% = 70.46 dinars) for your increased earnings for overtime work, making your total earnings for 1-hour amount to 341.46 dinars.

If an employee qualifies for increased earnings based on multiple criteria (e.g., overtime work at night), the percentage of increased earnings cannot be lower than the sum of the percentages for each criterion.

Therefore, considering that an additional 26% of the base amount is also added for night-time work, the person from the previous example would earn a total of 411.92 dinars per hour in this case.

There is another situation worth mentioning.

It involves a scenario where there has been a rescheduling of working hours for an employee, resulting in the termination of the employment relationship before the expiration of the redistributed time.

In such a case, if the employee works hours beyond the agreed-upon working hours, they have the right to request the employer to recalculate those additional hours into their working time.

If the employer fails to do so, they are obligated to calculate and pay those same hours as overtime work to the employee.

Overtime Work in Education

Often, situations of working beyond the full workload are confused with overtime work in education, but in most of these situations, it's actually supplementary work.

Regarding the remaining cases, overtime work in education exists in the same situations as in any other sector. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers often had to teach regular classes to one group, then another, and finally to students attending classes online.

In many of these situations, the hours spent by teachers working with students who chose online classes were not counted towards the total number of hours on a weekly (or yearly) basis.

Thus, it amounted to unpaid work. Since the reason for such work was force majeure in this case, it could be considered overtime, and teachers could be entitled to additional pay.

This would mean that the employer was also obligated to issue a decision to the employee, before the commencement of overtime work, specifying the reasons and duration of the overtime work, as well as an order for payment of increased salary by the law.

Does this mean that all employees in education who were not paid for working beyond the full workload could file lawsuits for it?

We will likely find the answer to this question, which is more closely regulated by the Special Collective Agreement for employees in primary and secondary schools and student dormitories.

Overtime Work in Healthcare

In healthcare institutions, on-call duty is considered overtime work and is regulated as such by the Special Act on Healthcare, not by the Employment Act.

Here's how this Act regulates working hours and organization of work in healthcare institutions to ensure efficient and continuous healthcare in line with citizens' needs:

• Firstly, the healthcare institution determines the weekly work schedule, start, and end of working hours according to the type of healthcare activity it performs and the needs of the citizens. For example, a hospital may have a different schedule from a health center due to the different services they provide and patient needs.
• The healthcare institution also must organize work in one, two, or more shifts, according to its activities. For instance, a hospital may need to operate in multiple shifts to ensure continuous healthcare coverage over 24 hours.
• The healthcare institution may introduce on-call duty as overtime work only if shift work organization and scheduling of employees' working hours are insufficient to ensure continuous healthcare. For example, if a hospital lacks sufficient staff for a particular shift, they may introduce an on-call duty to cover the shortfall.

In every situation of overtime work, employees must not be deprived of a daily rest period of at least 12 consecutive hours within 24 hours, nor a weekly rest period of at least 24 consecutive hours. This is stipulated in the collective agreement, although it's widely known that practice differs.

In addition to on-call duties, healthcare institutions may engage employees outside their regular working hours to provide healthcare.

This is commonly referred to as "on-call duty," and according to the Special Collective Agreement for Healthcare Institutions in Serbia, it is considered a form of overtime work.

This form of work is particularly important in situations requiring emergency interventions or additional medical assistance outside regular working hours. It involves employees being on standby and promptly responding to calls if urgent medical assistance is needed.

Regarding this, it's important to distinguish between standby and on-call duty.

During standby, you are entitled to a 10% supplement to the hourly value of your basic salary for each hour spent on standby. Once you are called to work and respond to the call, the standby period ends, and on-call duty begins, for which you are entitled to a 26% salary supplement based on your basic salary.

Regarding the rights of healthcare employees in cases of overtime work, they are entitled to:

• Salary supplements, in accordance with the law and internal agreements.
• Conversion of overtime hours into compensatory time off instead of salary supplements, upon the employee's request. If the employee cannot utilize these hours, for example, due to termination of the employment contract or relocation, they can request salary supplements for overtime work.
• One and a half hours of compensatory time off for each hour of overtime work.

Note: Hours of on-call duty, call-in work, and standby are mutually exclusive, meaning they cannot be combined to accrue additional rights to salary supplements or compensatory time off.

Overtime work on Saturdays and Sundays

The Employment Act does not prescribe the right of employees to increased earnings for overtime work on Saturdays and Sundays.

The reason for this is that the Employment Act treats Saturday and Sunday as any other day and does not establish a legal prohibition on them being working days.

The law only states that the workweek lasts for five working days, and the employer determines which days are working days, including weekends.

Overtime Work on Public Holidays

For working on a public holiday, employees have the right to at least a 110% increase in their base salary.

But how much is paid for working on a public holiday with overtime hours?

According to the Employment Act, if the conditions for multiple increases in overtime pay are met, the total percentage increase in earnings must be equal to or greater than the sum of the percentages for each condition. Here's the calculation:

For working on a public holiday, there is a salary increase of 110% of the base salary. For overtime work, there is a salary increase of 26% of the base salary.

This means that the daily wage for working on a public holiday, especially for someone working overtime, would amount to 639.36 dinars per hour if that person typically earns 271 dinars per hour.

Overtime Work at Night

For night work, if it is not already factored into determining the base salary, the increase in earnings is at least 26% of the base salary, just like in the case of overtime work.

This means that for overtime work at night, the total increase in earnings would be 26% + 26% = 52% of the base salary.

Employer's Responsibilities Regarding Overtime Work

Under normal circumstances, the employer is always obligated to inform employees about the work schedule and any changes to it at least 5 days in advance.

However, this is not the case with overtime work.

Namely, the employer is not obligated but CAN inform employees about such changes if necessary due to unforeseen circumstances. If the employer chooses this option, they are then obliged to provide notice at least 48 hours in advance.

Additionally, the employer is responsible for maintaining daily records of employees' overtime work.

This record serves as evidence to the employee that they have performed overtime work, and this evidence is equally useful for labor inspection.

An employer who fails to keep such records commits an offense, and you can read more about this towards the end of this article.

Prohibition of Overtime Work

Certain categories of employees and situations prohibit overtime work by law.

Employees cannot work overtime if the competent health authority deems such work could worsen their health.

Overtime work is also prohibited for individuals under the age of 18 (absolute prohibition), as well as for pregnant and breastfeeding women if the health authority assesses that such work would be harmful to their health or the health of their child (relative prohibition).

The Employment Act further regulates the issue of overtime work for parents, allowing one parent with a child up to three years of age to work overtime only with their written consent.

The same applies to single parents with a child up to seven years of age or a child who is severely disabled.

Overtime Work Violations

An employer, whether a legal entity or an entrepreneur, who assigns overtime work to an employee contrary to the Employment Act commits an offense and is subject to a fine ranging from 600.000,00 to 1.500.000,00 dinars.

If an employer, legal entity, or entrepreneur fails to keep proper daily records of employees' overtime work, they will also be fined, with penalties ranging from 150.000,00 to 300.000,00 dinars for the offense committed.

If your employer fails to maintain records of overtime work or has not calculated and paid you the increased earnings accordingly, you may seek assistance from a labor law attorney.