Being on stand-by

Being on stand-by is a period of time during which the employee is committed to be available to their employer and to come to work if called.

Being on stand-by must always be explicitly agreed on in the employment contract or on a case-by-case basis. When agreeing on this, the employer must give the employee clear instructions on what being on stand-by means, for example in terms of the time within which the employee must be ready to go to work and how much the compensation for being on stand-by is. If the employment contract has a clause on being on stand-by by default, the employee has to ask to read the related guidelines and conditions.

An employee has the right to refuse being on stand-by.

A separate compensation will be paid for being on stand-by, the amount of which has been stated in collective agreements or agreed locally. The length of the stand-by period and its repetition should not cause unreasonable detriment to an employee’s use of their free time.

If it is necessary to be present at the workplace during the night, for example, this is counted as a normal working time, not as stand-by time. Being on-call at the workplace, on the other hand, is always counted as working time, as the employee has to be ready to work at all times.