How many hours may an hourly employee work in a month in Sweden?

There is no separate cap for hourly staff, the Working Hours Act applies as for everyone else. Ordinary hours are at most 40 a week. General overtime may be at most 50 hours in a calendar month (or 48 over four weeks) and 200 in a year, and general additional hours at most 200 in a year. Collective agreements may set other limits. See the Swedish Working Hours Act for employers.

Can an hourly employee see their hours in Klokka?

Yes. Once you have invited them, they see their days, weeks and months in the app or on the web, and get a notification when hours are added, changed or removed.

Can an hourly employee have two employers in Klokka?

Yes. With the same login they see both businesses, separately, and switch between them in the app.

Can hourly staff log their own hours?

Not in this version. The employer logs the hours and the employee flags an entry that is wrong. Read more about what applies when an employer changes the hours.

Hours tracking for hourly employees

Q: Do hourly employees get holiday pay in Sweden?

Yes. With hourly pay, holiday pay follows the percentage rule, twelve percent of the pay that fell due in the qualifying year (Annual Leave Act, section 16 b), and if the employment ends before earned holiday pay has been paid, the employee gets holiday compensation (section 28). Collective agreements may have other rules. Klokka does not calculate it, but the hours in Klokka are the basis.

With Klokka the employer logs hourly staff's hours per day, and each employee sees the same month on their phone, is notified when anything changes and can flag an entry that is wrong. It is free to use, open source under the MIT licence, has no limit on employees, and works on the web and in the Android app, in English and Swedish.

Klokka does not calculate the pay for you. It makes sure the hours the pay is built on are the same for you and for the person who worked them.

When the pay is the hours

For hourly staff, the hours are the pay. An hour missing from the report is also missing from the payslip, and that usually shows only after the pay has gone out. Then come the questions, the corrections and an extra payment.

In Klokka, hourly staff see every day you log, the same day. If something is off they flag the entry straight away, and you sort it out while everyone still remembers the week. By the time the month closes, you already agree.

Hourly pay on or off

Pay is a switch for the whole business, and it starts off. Switch it on and each employee gets their own hourly rate and sees the amount next to the hours, per day, week and month. Anyone without a rate sees hours only.

Klokka multiplies hours by the hourly rate, nothing more. Unsocial-hours pay, overtime pay, holiday pay and tax are worked out in the payroll system or by whoever runs payroll.

Two employers, one app

Many hourly workers work in more than one place. If both employers use Klokka, the employee sees both businesses with the same login and switches between them in the app. The hours stay separate, and neither employer sees the other's.

Extra staff who work now and then

Invite your extra staff once, by name and email, and log only the days they actually work. There is no limit on the number of employees, so someone who only helps out in December or over the summer can stay on the list all year.

If you remove an employee who already has hours, they are deactivated instead, and the hours stay visible to both of you.

What employers in Sweden should know about hourly staff

The Swedish Working Hours Act applies to hourly staff just as to any other employee, and there is no separate cap for them. Ordinary hours are at most 40 a week (section 5). General overtime is capped at 48 hours over four weeks or 50 in a calendar month and at 200 in a calendar year (section 8), and general additional hours at 200 in a calendar year (section 10). Total working time may be at most 48 hours per seven-day period on average over at most four months (section 10 b). On top of that come 11 hours of daily rest and 36 hours of weekly rest (sections 13 and 14, the Act, in Swedish). There is more in the guide to the Swedish Working Hours Act, and how many hours a full-time month has is in working hours per month.

Staff on hourly pay, meaning pay not set per week or month, get holiday pay under the percentage rule: twelve percent of the pay that fell due in the qualifying year (Annual Leave Act, sections 16 and 16 b, in Swedish). Collective agreements may have other rules (section 2 a). If the employment is meant to last at most three months and does not last longer, you can agree that no leave is scheduled, and the employee is then entitled to holiday compensation instead (section 5). If the employment ends before earned holiday pay has been paid, it is paid out as holiday compensation (section 28).

Klokka does not calculate overtime, additional hours, sick pay or holiday pay. It holds the hours, and they are the basis for all of that. Check your collective agreement, it may set other limits and give more than the law.

Month end

When the month is right, you lock it. Nothing can be changed until you unlock it again, and your staff are told the month is closed. Then you export the month as a CSV file, for one person or the whole business, for whoever runs payroll.

If you need to add up a shift with a break first, there is a work hours calculator.

What Klokka does not do

Klokka does no scheduling, has no time clock and runs no payroll. Staff cannot log their own hours in this version, they see the hours and flag what is wrong.

Klokka is used by small businesses in many trades, for example cafés and restaurants, cleaning companies, hair and beauty salons and shops.