How to calculate overtime: hours, pay, and time off in lieu

The threshold is weekly. In a week with one long day and one early finish, no overtime in the legal sense arises as long as the total stays within the forty-five hours of Article 41. Article 63 sets general working time at no more than forty-five hours a week and allows the parties to agree to spread it unevenly across the days, provided no day exceeds eleven hours. This arrangement is called averaging.

With averaging, the single week is no longer the yardstick. Under Article 63 the weekly average may not exceed normal working time over a two-month period, which a collective agreement can extend to four months. Article 41 adds that where averaging applies, hours above forty-five in some weeks are not overtime as long as the average is not exceeded.

Example scenario: picture a plastic injection moulding workshop in Gebze that runs shifts. If the contract sets a forty-hour week, under Article 41 hours forty-one to forty-five would be calculated as extended hours and anything above forty-five as overtime, each at its own rate. If the workshop uses averaging, a busy week could be balanced by a quieter one.

Keeping the two groups apart also helps with payroll. Because extended hours and overtime are paid at different rates, adding them up on one line makes it impossible to tell later which hour was paid at which rate. If the weekly record keeps them in separate columns, both the calculation and the answer to an employee's question become easier.

The calculation follows the same order for every employee. First the weekly total comes out of the record, then it is compared with the threshold, then it is multiplied by the hourly wage and the statutory rate:

• The total hours worked in the week are taken from the attendance record.
• Hours between the contractual weekly time and the forty-five hours of Article 41 are set aside as extended hours.
• Under Article 41, hours above forty-five are set aside as overtime.
• The normal hourly wage is derived from the employee's pay under your payroll rules.
• Each group is multiplied by the hourly wage increased at its own rate.

How the hourly wage is derived from monthly pay is a matter for your payroll practice and should follow the same rule every month. At the Gebze workshop the difficulty would rarely lie in the multiplication. If it were unclear which week an hour belongs to when shifts change, or how a shift crossing midnight is split, the same employee could end up with two different results.

Article 41 makes time off depend on the employee's wish; it is the employee who chooses it instead of pay. The same article says it is used within six months, during working hours, and without any cut in pay. So choosing time off does not end the calculation; it opens a balance: how many hours were earned, how many were used, and when the six months set by Article 41 run out.

Keeping the balance next to the leave record reduces confusion. When an employee asks how much time off is left, the answer comes from a record, and the manager sees who will be away and when alongside the leave calendar.

Article 9 of the regulation says consent can be taken when the employment contract is signed or when the need arises. Under the same Article 9, an employee who no longer wants to work overtime can withdraw consent with thirty days' written notice. Consent is not required for overtime worked for compelling reasons or in emergencies; Article 42 lists compelling reasons such as breakdowns and urgent work, on condition that employees who work overtime get suitable rest.

The annual limit is the second leg of the calculation. Even if the weekly sums are right, the limit can be passed unnoticed if nobody sees the hours building up over the year. Article 41 also says overtime may not be worked at night or in jobs whose hours are shortened for health reasons. You can find a short definition of the term in the overtime glossary entry.

If an employee forgets to clock out, the system either leaves the exit blank or writes the end of the shift. Both are wrong: one deletes hours, the other can create hours that never happened. If a late departure is recorded but never sent for approval, by month end nobody remembers whether those hours were overtime or a personal delay.

That is why the quality of an overtime calculation depends on the quality of the attendance system. What PDKS is explains how attendance records are kept and which devices are used.

Before month end, checking that each overtime record carries the following details saves most of the calculation:

• Clock-in and clock-out times complete, with exits closed by the system marked separately.
• The manager's approval of the overtime and the date of that approval.
• The employee's written consent to overtime kept in the personnel file.
• Whether pay or time off was chosen, and the time-off balance.
• The overtime total built up since the start of the year.

The four decisions in this section were read in the Court of Cassation decision search system. Each row is a short summary of the court's reasoning and does not replace the decision; you can reach the full text by entering the chamber, docket, and decision numbers in the search screen.

What the four decisions share is the record's reliability rather than its mere existence. The court weighs a record by who could change it and when, whether it matches the other documents, and whether exits closed by the system itself can be told apart. The trace showing who changed what in a record, and when, is called an audit trail. This section is for information and is not legal advice; for a specific dispute, consult your lawyer.

The approval centre does not only receive late departures. Shifts that were never ended and were closed by the system at the shift time, late arrivals, and clock-outs away from the work location also come up for approval. The employee's explanation and department show on the record. The two mistakes that spoil month end, the unclosed clock-out and the unapproved late departure, therefore reach the manager before month end.

Overtime approvals, leave and advance requests, and the timesheet sit in the same module. The Corex360 Human Resources page shows the module as a whole. The law sets the rates and the annual limit; Corex360's job is to make sure the hours that feed the calculation are right and approved.