Remote and hybrid work: record the hours, not the person
Home working did not create a new legal duty. It removed the informal evidence you used to have — and it opened a market for software that watches people. Those are two different things, and they deserve different answers.
What actually changes when someone works from home
Legally, very little. Regulation 9 applies wherever the work is done, and regulation 9(3) — that you need not record daily hours where compliance can be shown another way — applies at home just as it does in the office. The detail is here.
Practically, a lot. In an office, "were they here?" answers itself. At home it does not, and two things that used to be invisible become disputes: whether the eleven-hour rest was actually taken by somebody answering mail at 23:40, and whether the hours behind an overtime claim ever existed. A record settles both, in the worker’s favour as often as yours.
Where recording hours genuinely helps
- The evening that never ends. When start and end are recorded, the drift is visible while it is still fixable. Most people undercount their own home hours, not the reverse.
- Overtime and time off in lieu. A balance everyone can see is a balance nobody argues about.
- Irregular-hours and part-year workers, where holiday accrues at 12.07% of hours per pay period and the sum cannot be done without the hours.
- Hybrid teams, where "in the office on Tuesday" and "at home the rest" otherwise lives in somebody’s head.
What we will not sell you
Several vendors in this market offer screenshots at intervals, activity scores, keystroke counts and continuous location. We offer none of it, and not because we could not build it:
- It engages data protection law far more heavily than a clock does, and the impact assessment is yours to defend.
- It measures presence at a keyboard, which is not the same as work, as anyone who has jiggled a mouse can confirm.
- It tells your team you do not trust them, which costs more than it saves.
A start time, an end time and the breaks in between will answer every question the law asks. The question of whether someone is doing good work is a management question and always was.
How it works in practice
- Clocking in the browser or on a phone, with nothing to install from an app store. How the app works.
- Rest and break checks run on the person’s own day, so they mean something across time zones.
- With the flexitime module, an hours account with a daily corridor and the averaging window set to your own agreement — so the record follows the policy you actually have.
- Location is off unless you switch on clocking places, and then it is checked at the moment of the punch, never continuously, and the person sees it before they tap.
Questions we get
Do we have to record hours for people working from home?
The duty is the same wherever the work happens: records adequate to show you have complied, and since January 2024 you need not record daily hours if you can demonstrate compliance another way. Home working does not create a separate duty — but it does remove the informal evidence you had in an office, which is why more employers record hours for home workers than for anyone else.
Can we monitor what someone does on their computer at home?
That is a very different question from recording hours, and a much harder one. Monitoring content, screenshots or activity scoring engages data protection law squarely and needs an impact assessment, a lawful basis and transparency. We do not do any of it, and we would think hard before buying it.
How do we know someone at home actually worked those hours?
The same way you knew it in the office: by what gets done. A clock records when, not whether. Any vendor promising to prove productivity with screenshots is selling you a surveillance problem to solve a management one.
What about people who work across time zones?
The record is kept in the working time of the person, so a start at 07:00 their time is a start at 07:00. Rest periods are checked against their own day, which is the only way an eleven-hour rest means anything.
Free for up to 3 employees, forever
Thirty days with everything included, AI assistant and all, no card and no automatic renewal. When the trial ends, companies with up to 3 employees simply keep working for free. And within the first 60 days you get your money back if it does not fit.
Questions? Write to time@irot.com. We answer on working days, usually by the next one.