Uneven distribution of working hours

What is uneven scheduling of working hours and when is it useful

Even scheduling means that the employer schedules the specified weekly working hours for individual weeks. In the case of uneven scheduling, the employer does not schedule them evenly for individual weeks, but the average weekly working time over a specified period must not exceed the specified weekly working hours (Section 78(1)(l) and (m) of the Czech Labor Code).

For manufacturing with variable demand, this is a tool that allows for longer shifts during peak periods and shorter shifts during slumps, without the longer shifts automatically becoming overtime. A typical example is seasonal production: in some months more hours per week are worked, in others fewer, and the average over the balancing period corresponds to the specified weekly working hours.

The decision of whether to schedule working hours evenly or unevenly rests with the employer, and the law does not stipulate any special operational conditions for this. The Supreme Court explicitly stated this in judgment 21 Cdo 2669/2024 dated April 20, 2026. If a trade union operates within the company, the employer must discuss the scheduling concerning a larger number of employees with the union.

The advantage is mainly operational and financial. Without uneven scheduling, the company would resort to overtime more frequently during peak periods. Under Czech legislation, overtime is permissible only exceptionally and with limits: ordered overtime must not exceed 8 hours per week and 150 hours per calendar year, and total overtime must not exceed an average of 8 hours per week (Section 93 of the Labor Code). Conversely, during a slump, the company would have to pay employees compensation for obstacles on the part of the employer if it has no work to assign to them.

Uneven scheduling is suitable where the need for labor fluctuates predictably and repeatedly: seasonal production, cyclical orders, operations linked to a customer's schedule. Where fluctuations occur unexpectedly from day to day, it is not sufficient because it requires a schedule prepared and announced in advance. Short-term peaks are then resolved by overtime within legal limits, while longer fluctuations are better addressed by a working time account. A similar logic of planning in advance for other tools is described in the text on flexible forms of work.

How long the balancing period can be and who determines it

In the case of uneven scheduling, the average weekly working hours must not exceed the specified weekly working hours over a period of no more than 26 consecutive weeks; only a collective agreement, not the employer's internal regulation, can extend this to 52 weeks. A company without a trade union cannot conclude a collective agreement and must therefore count on a maximum of 26 weeks, i.e., roughly half a year.

Within this framework, the length of the balancing period is determined by the employer. According to judgment 21 Cdo 2669/2024, the employer may determine it in advance, typically in an internal regulation, but is not obliged to do so. If it is not determined in advance, the balancing period is considered to be the period for which the employer actually scheduled the working hours unevenly, up to a maximum of 26 or 52 weeks. In the case under review, the employer prepared the shift schedule always for a calendar month, and the courts therefore considered one month to be the balancing period.

For practice, this implies a specific risk: anyone who does not specify the length of the balancing period anywhere and issues the schedule on a monthly basis effectively has a monthly balancing period. The average must then be balanced every month, not over half a year, which the company might have anticipated. Fluctuations between months, which were supposed to be balanced by quieter weeks several months later, will thus not be balanced.

The choice of the period's length has a direct impact on planning flexibility. A shorter period, such as a quarterly one, forces the company to balance the hours worked more frequently and does not allow compensating for a busy season with a quieter period several months later. A longer period provides more room but increases the risk that at its end, a large discrepancy between the plan and reality will appear, which there will no longer be time to offset through scheduling.

Even the longest balancing period does not allow for arbitrarily long shifts. The length of a shift must not exceed 12 hours (Section 83 of the Labor Code). For production, this means that even in the busiest week, the peak cannot be covered solely by extending shifts beyond this limit. Additional hours must already go outside the schedule as overtime or be covered by additional staff.

How far in advance to announce the shift schedule to stand up to scrutiny

The employer is obliged to prepare a written schedule of weekly working hours and acquaint the employee with it or its change at least two weeks, and in the case of a working time account one week, before the start of the period for which the working hours are scheduled, unless the employer agrees with the employee on a different time of acquaintance (Section 84 of the Labor Code).

This seemingly simple deadline is one of the most common areas where manufacturing companies with multiple shifts and frequent rescheduling make mistakes. A schedule announced one week in advance for regular uneven scheduling does not meet the statutory deadline unless the employer has agreed on a shorter period with the employee. According to the Supreme Court, such an agreement does not have a prescribed form: it can be written, oral, or implied (concludent), i.e., resulting from the behavior of the parties that leaves no doubt about what they wanted to express. It can concern a single schedule or all future ones (21 Cdo 631/2019).

However, an implied agreement is difficult to prove in a dispute or during an inspection. The mere silence of employees or the fact that they showed up for the shift may not be sufficient. Anyone relying on a shorter period should therefore arrange it in writing, for example in the employment contract or in a separate agreement.

The consequence of a missed deadline is significant. Until the employer has a written schedule and has acquainted the employee with it within the specified or agreed time, the new schedule does not take effect. The employee is not obliged to work under it and cannot commit unexcused absence. The previous schedule continues to apply, under which the employer is obliged to assign work and pay wages.

The same rules apply to changing the schedule during the period. If a company needs to reschedule shifts due to an unexpected order, it must also announce the change with the same advance notice, unless agreed otherwise with the employees. Unilateral reassignment to another shift from one day to the next circumvents this deadline. A short-term need can be resolved without agreement only by overtime within legal limits, not by rewriting the schedule.

The third problem, which only becomes apparent in hindsight, is the difference between what the company actually communicated to the employees and what it can prove retrospectively. The schedule must be prepared in writing. However, the acquaintance itself does not require handing over a document to each employee. According to judgment 21 Cdo 631/2019, it is sufficient that the schedule is part of an accessible internal regulation or written instruction and the employee receives information that the scheduling or its change has occurred.

The recommended standard is therefore a written schedule published in a way that leaves a verifiable trail: in an internal system with the date of publication, by email, or by posting with a dated record. The larger the operation and the more different shifts there are, the more the documentation pays off. In a dispute over wages or unexcused absence, it is this documentation that is decisive.

Working time account as an alternative: when it makes sense

A working time account is a special method of scheduling working hours, and the employer may apply it only if agreed in a collective agreement or stipulated in an internal regulation of an employer where no trade union operates (Section 86 of the Labor Code). A company with a union can therefore introduce it only through a collective agreement, while a company without a union can do so via an internal regulation. For the account as well, a balancing period of no more than 26 weeks applies, which a collective agreement can extend up to 52 weeks.

Practically the most important difference is in remuneration. Under regular uneven scheduling, the employee receives wages according to general rules: with a monthly wage, their income usually does not change due to shorter or longer weeks; with an hourly wage, it corresponds to the hours worked. Under a working time account, the employee is entitled to a constant wage for each month, agreed in the collective agreement or stipulated in the internal regulation. This must not be lower than 80% of their average earnings (Section 120 of the Labor Code).

The difference between the constant wage and the wage for the work actually performed is settled only after the end of the balancing period or the employment relationship. If the wage earned is higher than the sum of the constant wages paid, the employer pays the difference. The employer keeps a working time account and a wage account, so the account requires a more sophisticated payroll administration than simple uneven scheduling.

The second difference is in who bears the risk of unused hours. If an employee cannot work under regular scheduling due to other obstacles on the part of the employer, for example because the company has no work for them, they are entitled to wage compensation in the amount of average earnings. However, this does not apply if a working time account has been applied (Section 208 of the Labor Code). Unworked hours are therefore not a debt of the employee that they would have to make up. The account is the only regime where fluctuations in work assignment are replaced by a constant wage instead of wage compensation.

The account is therefore worthwhile where fluctuations are significant and long-lasting and where a stable income helps retain employees, typically in seasonal production with a large difference between peak and slump periods. For smaller operations without unions, it tends to be administratively more demanding than simple uneven scheduling.

The choice between the two tools is also a personnel issue. A collective agreement must be negotiated by a company with a union, which takes time. Conversely, an internal regulation is issued unilaterally by the employer and does not require the consent of the employees. However, it must meet the legal requirements described below.

Rest periods and overtime: where uneven scheduling ends

Unevenly scheduled working hours are among the situations where the law allows for the reduction of the continuous daily rest period, but it is not the only one. The employer is obliged to provide the employee with a continuous daily rest period of at least 11 hours within 24 consecutive hours. For an employee over 18 years of age, this can be reduced to as little as 8 hours, among other things in continuous operations, in the case of unevenly scheduled working hours, and during overtime. The condition is that their subsequent rest period is extended by the duration of the reduction (Section 90(1) and (2) of the Labor Code).

This exception works only as a postponement of the rest period, not as its permanent reduction. A company that does not compensate for the reduced rest period by extending the subsequent one violates the law, even if it has the balancing period set up correctly. Shift planning must therefore monitor not only the sum of hours but also whether each reduction of the rest period is actually and timely compensated.

The second risk is overtime arising alongside the schedule. Overtime is not just a mathematical surplus of hours found at the end of the period. The law defines it as work performed at the employer's command or with their consent in excess of the specified weekly working hours resulting from the pre-determined scheduling and outside the scope of the shift schedule (Section 78(1)(i) of the Labor Code).

The Supreme Court, in resolution 21 Cdo 2511/2022, added that the employer's consent can also be oral or tacitly given. Overtime work must not be included in the shift schedule without clear designation. A longer shift during a peak period, which is properly scheduled in advance, is therefore not overtime. Extra hours that the shift supervisor orders or tolerates outside the schedule are. It is precisely these hours that companies unexpectedly pay extra for at the end of the period, and it is these hours that count towards the limit of an average of 8 hours of overtime per week.

Companies that overlook this will only discover the problem at the end of the balancing period. It is then too late for preventive schedule adjustments, and what remains is to pay the wages and overtime surcharges, often for multiple employees at once. Therefore, it pays to check the fulfillment of the plan continuously, for example in the middle of the balancing period, and to keep records of overtime separately from scheduled shifts.

How to set up shift planning to stand up to an inspection

The first step is to explicitly determine the length of the balancing period according to the actual pattern of demand fluctuation, not automatically according to the legal maximum. If the company does not determine it, it will be effectively determined by the length of the schedule, with all the consequences described above. A shorter, more precisely monitored period reduces the risk of a large discrepancy at the end, while a longer one gives more flexibility where seasonality is significant and predictable long in advance.

The second step is an internal process that reliably monitors the two-week deadline for acquaintance with the schedule and all its changes. HR or operations managers who prepare the schedule need a firm deadline by which the schedule must be ready and published. If the company needs a shorter period, it must arrange it with the employees in writing.

The third step is to decide whether a working time account makes sense for the company instead of simple uneven scheduling. What decides is how significant the fluctuations are and how important wage stability is for retaining people. Introducing an account requires a collective agreement or an internal regulation, and both need to be prepared in advance.

An internal regulation must meet legal requirements, otherwise it is completely or in the affected part invalid. It must be issued in writing, must not conflict with legal regulations, and must not be issued with retroactive effect. It takes effect at the earliest on the day it was promulgated at the employer's. Employees must be acquainted with its issuance no later than within 15 days, and the regulation must be accessible to all employees (Section 305 of the Labor Code). A regulation written additionally, only after the company had actually been planning according to it for a long time, will not remedy anything retroactively.

The fourth step is continuous monitoring of the plan's fulfillment in the middle of the balancing period. Any deviation from the average can then be corrected by scheduling for the remaining weeks and does not have to be paid extra as overtime after its end. How these rules combine with overtime work, which uneven scheduling does not affect in any way, is analyzed in the text on employee overtime.

Companies that combine their own unevenly scheduled shifts with agency workers should align the schedules of both groups. The rules for agency employment and its limits have their own specifics.

How exactly to set up the balancing period and whether to choose simple uneven scheduling or a working time account depends on the seasonality pattern and whether a trade union operates in the company. Therefore, the Czech legal team at ARROWS law firm always assesses this according to the specific operation, not according to a universal template of an internal regulation.

Risks of uneven scheduling of working hours

Final summary

Uneven scheduling of working hours is a useful tool for manufacturing with variable demand, but it requires compliance with several rules. The balancing period must not exceed 26 weeks without a collective agreement, and it is advisable to explicitly determine its length; a shift must not be longer than 12 hours, and employees must be acquainted with the schedule at least two weeks in advance.

For production management and HR, this implies a clear task: determine the length of the balancing period according to actual seasonality and introduce a process that monitors the deadline for acquaintance with the schedule and its changes. Without this, the problem will not appear immediately, but only at the end of the balancing period or in a wage dispute.

The lawyers of ARROWS law firm prepare internal regulations and documents for collective agreements for uneven scheduling as well as working time accounts, and assess what shift planning system suits a specific operation. Write to us at consultation@arws.cz or review our labor law practice.