Four-Day Workweek Working Time Tracking: What Compressed Rosters Mean for Payroll

7 min read
HR manager reviewing digital rosters and working-time records on a laptop screen
Fotó: aboodi vesakaran (Pexels)

Moving to a four-day schedule sounds straightforward until the third day of the month, when payroll has to reconcile attendance records against published rosters and the figures do not match. For HR managers and operations directors, four-day workweek working time tracking means rethinking daily shift schedules, leave balance accounting, and overtime triggers. Whether an organization compresses forty weekly hours into four longer shifts or trials a thirty-two-hour week, operational compliance depends on disciplined time recording.

The Two Models Behind the Headline

Public discussion of the shorter workweek frequently groups two distinct operational arrangements together: genuine working-time reduction and compressed work schedules. Conflating the two creates immediate confusion for HR and payroll teams.

In a working-time reduction model, employees work fewer hours (such as 80% of standard working time) while retaining 100% of their base compensation. Secondary reporting on an international study published in Nature Human Behaviour on July 21, 2025 (led by Wen Fan, Juliet Schor, and colleagues at Boston College) tracked 141 organizations and 2,896 employees across six countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand). The researchers reported reduced burnout, higher job satisfaction, and improved self-rated health, with approximately 90% of participating organizations opting to continue the schedule after the trial. However, all participating employers were self-selected volunteers, and the trial included no Central European organizations.

Institutional overviews reflect a more nuanced picture. A Eurofound working paper released on June 23, 2026, which reviewed working-time reduction initiatives across European Union member states and Norway between 2020 and February 2024, pointed to potential gains in worker well-being and productivity alongside practical constraints such as varying sectoral suitability and employer reluctance. Legislative attempts to mandate shorter weeks have also encountered political hurdles. In Spain, the Congress of Deputies voted on September 10, 2025, to reject a legislative proposal that would have lowered the statutory weekly working time from 40 to 37.5 hours without wage cuts. In Poland, the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy (MRPiPS) launched an administrative trial in which 78 employers and nearly 5,000 workers are testing shortened hours (selected from roughly 2,000 applicants), but the pilot does not amend the Polish Labour Code.

The second model is the compressed workweek, which keeps contracted weekly hours intact while concentrating them into fewer working days (often four 10-hour shifts). Belgium formalized this route in its 2022 Labour Deal. Under Belgian law, an employee may request in writing to compress their full weekly hours into four days (working 9.5 hours daily for a 38-hour week, or 10 hours daily for a 40-hour week under an applicable collective agreement). The arrangement runs for renewable six-month terms, and employers must justify any refusal in writing. This framework compresses existing working hours rather than reducing total contractual time.

Macro-level labor data illustrates the varied working hours across Europe. According to Eurostat figures published on May 27, 2026, the actual average weekly working time in main jobs for employed individuals aged 20-64 across the European Union was 35.9 hours in 2025, compared to 36.9 hours in 2015. National figures varied significantly: employees in the Netherlands logged the shortest average week at 31.9 hours, whereas Greece (39.6 hours), Bulgaria (38.7 hours), and Poland (38.7 hours) recorded the longest. In some jurisdictions, legislative changes have expanded shift flexibility rather than shortening the week. On October 16, 2025, the Greek parliament passed labor legislation (by a 158 to 109 vote) allowing private-sector employees to voluntarily work up to 13-hour days for up to 37 days annually, compensated with a 40% wage supplement.

Operational ParameterCompressed Schedule (Illustration: 4×10 Hours)Reduced Working Time (Illustration: 4×8 Hours)
Contracted Weekly Hours40 hours preservedReduced to 32 hours
Scheduled Shift Length10 hours per scheduled workday8 hours per scheduled workday
Statutory Mechanism (HU Mt.)Uneven schedule within a working-time banking frame (Sections 97-99)Mutual contract amendment for shorter full-time (Section 92)
Leave Balance Accounting (HU Mt. Section 124)Recorded in scheduled working days or hours of release from duty (for example, deducting 10 hours if tracked by hours for a 10-hour scheduled shift)Recorded in scheduled working days or hours of release from duty (for example, deducting 8 hours if tracked by hours)
Overtime Triggers (HU Mt. Section 107)Work performed outside the published roster (including early starts or unscheduled rest days) and hours exceeding the cumulative banking frameWork performed outside the published roster and hours exceeding contracted full-time hours
Base Salary StructureStandard base monthly salary and standard hourly calculationRecalculated hourly base rate if gross monthly compensation is preserved

Why Four-Day Workweek Working Time Tracking Breaks Standard Spreadsheets

In businesses with 10 to 300 employees, attendance administration frequently relies on static spreadsheets built on the implicit assumption of an unvarying five-day, eight-hour week. Introducing an uneven four-day rotation exposes the limitations of manual records.

Compliance begins with European Union baselines. Under Directive 2003/88/EC, employers must provide at least 11 consecutive hours of daily rest and ensure that average weekly working time does not exceed 48 hours. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) held in C-55/18 (CCOO v. Deutsche Bank, May 14, 2019) that member states must require employers to implement an objective, reliable, and accessible system measuring daily working time. A legal review published by HR Portál in June 2026 noted that the core statutory requirements for daily working-time records in Hungary remain in effect and unchanged.

Under the Hungarian Labour Code (Act I of 2012, Mt., as effective October 1, 2026), the default rules are clear. Section 92 (1) sets standard full-time employment at eight hours per day, and Section 97 (2) defines the general work schedule as five days per week, Monday through Friday. The Mt. contains no explicit statutory clause establishing a four-day workweek. Consequently, an arrangement such as a 4×10 schedule must be operated as an uneven schedule (egyenlőtlen beosztás), which is legally permissible only within a working-time banking frame (munkaidőkeret) or an accounting period under Sections 97 and 98.

An uneven schedule introduces statutory parameters that static spreadsheets rarely accommodate:

  • Daily and weekly shift boundaries: Under Section 99, scheduled daily working time must be at least 4 hours and cannot exceed 12 hours. Scheduled weekly working time cannot exceed 48 hours.
  • Mandatory rest periods: Employees are entitled to at least 11 consecutive hours of daily rest between shifts (Section 104) and two rest days per week (Section 105).
  • Advance roster notice: Work schedules must be communicated in writing for at least one week, at least 168 hours before the start of the scheduled shift. Schedule modifications require at least 96 hours written notice (Section 97). The starting and closing dates of the working-time banking frame must also be defined and announced in writing (Section 93).
  • Recording obligations: Section 134 requires employers to maintain daily, up-to-date records of regular and extraordinary working time, standby duty, and leaves, showing exact start and finish times. While regular hours can be recorded by monthly sign-off of the written roster under Section 134, this applies equally whether shifts are standard or uneven.

Manual tools struggle when routine operational changes occur. On the third day of the month, payroll discovers an employee logged 11 hours on Tuesday, took an unplanned personal absence on Thursday, and the department supervisor never issued a written roster modification. A spreadsheet defaulting to eight hours per day records inaccurate totals, fails compliance checks, and creates wage calculation errors.

Leave Balances and Overtime: The Arithmetic That Catches Payroll Off Guard

Paid leave and overtime are the two areas where compressed schedules most often produce payroll discrepancies.

Under Section 124 of the Hungarian Labour Code, annual paid leave must be allocated to scheduled working days. For uneven schedules, the law permits accounting for leave either in working days or in the hours of release from work duty. In an hourly accounting setup on a 4×10 schedule, taking leave on a scheduled 10-hour workday releases the employee from 10 scheduled working hours, and 10 hours must be deducted from their balance. If payroll records that absence using an unadjusted 8-hour daily assumption, the employee is relieved of 10 hours of work while only 8 hours are deducted, creating an unrecorded deficit over time. Conversely, taking an entire four-day week off consumes 40 hours of their annual quota across four calendar days, which must be reflected in roster and leave records alike.

Overtime rules require equal precision. Under Section 107 of the Mt., extraordinary working time consists of hours worked outside the published roster as well as hours exceeding the cumulative banking frame. Work performed outside the published roster includes staying late, starting earlier than scheduled, or working on an unscheduled rest day without valid roster modification notice. Under standard rules in Section 109, extraordinary working time is capped at 250 hours per calendar year, compensated with a 50% wage supplement or equivalent time off in lieu under Section 143, though collective agreements or specific statutory exceptions can alter these baseline thresholds.

In a 4×10 rotation, an employee working 10 hours on a rostered workday does not accumulate daily overtime. Hours nine and ten are regular scheduled hours. Overtime begins if the employee works beyond the tenth scheduled hour, clocks in before their scheduled start, works on an unassigned rest day without timely written notice, or exceeds the total hour pool of the banking frame at the end of the settlement cycle.

For staff on a fixed monthly salary, Section 156 specifies that employees receive their standard base salary regardless of the specific hours scheduled in a given calendar month. Settlement occurs at the end of the banking frame (which can span up to 4 months or 16 weeks under general rules, up to 6 months for specific activities, or up to 36 months under collective agreements per Section 94). If payroll calculates overtime monthly against an arbitrary 160-hour baseline instead of tracking the cumulative frame balance, they generate false payments that lead to retroactive payroll corrections.

When an employer implements a genuine working-time reduction (such as a 32-hour week with full pay), the contractual mechanics change. Section 92 allows parties to agree on shorter full-time employment. If gross monthly compensation remains unchanged while contracted weekly hours decrease, the calculated base hourly rate must be recalculated, which in turn adjusts the base used for overtime supplements, night allowances, and public holiday premiums.

These considerations have surfaced in legislative debate. Draft parliamentary resolution H/2171 (submitted in November 2022 by opposition MP Bence Tordai) proposed a Monday-through-Thursday general schedule with three rest days and an explicit 1.25 hourly wage multiplier. A draft amendment published on the Democratic Coalition website in 2026 proposed lowering statutory overtime to 200 hours, extending daily rest to 12 hours, and restricting the length of banking frames, though its formal submission status and parliamentary bill number remain unconfirmed. Both documents represent party proposals rather than enacted law. Under current statutory rules, shortened schedules remain an internal contractual matter.

Operational Friction Across Mixed Teams

Practical challenges often prevent pilots from becoming permanent company-wide policy. Press reports regarding Magyar Telekom's 2022 four-day trial noted high employee satisfaction scores (94%), but secondary accounts also indicated that management concluded the test in early 2024 because the model could not be deployed uniformly across all functions (though reports in secondary media contain conflicting details about the trial's conclusion, and primary corporate disclosures were not reviewed).

In an organization of 50 to 200 people, office-based roles like software development, finance, and marketing can often compress their tasks into four days. Customer support desks, logistics teams, and field service personnel cannot close on Friday without disrupting operations.

Operating split teams creates friction in three areas:

  1. Unplanned absence coverage: When an employee on a 10-hour shift calls in sick on Wednesday morning, finding replacement coverage from another four-day team risks infringing the mandatory 11-hour consecutive rest period (Section 104) or breaching the 48-hour maximum weekly ceiling (Section 99).
  2. Roster modification notice periods: Operational emergencies require swift schedule adjustments, yet altering an existing roster under Section 97 requires at least 96 hours written notice. Calling in an employee with less notice classifies the shift as extraordinary working time outside the published roster, increasing payroll costs.
  3. Approval handoffs: If team leaders work four days while frontline staff work five, Friday closing reports, urgent leave approvals, and operational handoffs can stall until Monday.

Structuring Rosters and Attendance Data for Reliable Payroll

Managing uneven shifts without administrative errors requires moving beyond static documents. Structured payroll data preparation connects roster planning, daily attendance recording, leave management, and settlement balances.

Dedicated systems can help reduce monthly administration and lower the risk of payroll queries. SimpliTime (developed by DVP Systems Kft.) supports businesses from small teams to organisations with thousands of employees by bringing shift scheduling, attendance recording, and payroll data preparation into a single web-based application. Supervisors can set up roster templates, track shift swaps, and generate discrepancy reports comparing scheduled rosters with actual attendance before month-end closing. The system tracks statutory leave entitlements and balances under Hungarian rules, accommodates overtime multipliers and custom calculation parameters, and exports structured payroll summaries for external accountants or payroll software rather than attempting to replace full payroll processing. Employees can access the platform via a mobile-friendly web interface or dedicated iPhone and Android apps available on the App Store and Google Play, with mobile browser access on other devices.

Sources

Frequently asked questions

Does a four-day schedule always mean a thirty-two-hour workweek?
No. Many international trials test a thirty-two-hour week with full pay, but statutory frameworks such as Belgium's 2022 Labour Deal focus on compressed schedules where employees work their standard thirty-eight or forty hours across four days (working 9.5 or 10 hours daily). Under Hungarian labor law, moving to a shorter full-time schedule requires an individual employment contract amendment under Section 92.
How is paid leave deducted on a 10-hour compressed schedule under Hungarian law?
Under Section 124 of the Hungarian Labour Code, paid leave must be allocated to scheduled working days and can be tracked either in working days or in the hours of release from work duty. For employers tracking leave in hours, an employee absent on a scheduled 10-hour shift consumes 10 hours of released work from their balance. If tracked in working days, the absence consumes a scheduled workday under statutory allocation rules.
Does working a 10-hour shift automatically create overtime under Hungarian rules?
Not if the shift was properly scheduled in advance within a valid working-time banking frame. In an uneven schedule under the Hungarian Labour Code, scheduled hours nine and ten are regular working time. Overtime arises when an employee works outside the published roster (such as starting earlier than scheduled or working past the tenth hour), works on an unscheduled rest day without timely roster notice, or exceeds the cumulative banking frame at the end of the settlement period.
Can an employer in Hungary unilaterally introduce a four-day workweek?
Under Section 97 (2) of the Hungarian Labour Code, the default working schedule is five days per week, Monday through Friday. While an employer operating a working-time banking frame can schedule uneven daily shifts between 4 and 12 hours within statutory notice periods, altering contracted weekly working hours requires a mutual employment contract amendment under Section 92.
What notice periods apply when modifying an uneven work schedule in Hungary?
Under Section 97 of the Hungarian Labour Code, work schedules must be communicated in writing for at least one week, at least 168 hours before the start of the scheduled shift. If business needs require modifying an already published roster, the change must be communicated in writing at least 96 hours before the shift begins. Changes made with less notice classify the time as extraordinary work outside the published schedule.

Testing compressed shifts or uneven rosters requires clear attendance records and accurate payroll preparation. Explore SimpliTime's features and pricing, or evaluate roster planning and leave tracking with a 60-day free trial (no credit card required): https://app.simplitime.hu/login

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