An employer may require an employee to remain available outside normal working hours and ready to perform work if required (on-call duty). However, on-call duty time cannot be unlimited. In particular, an employer may not require an employee to be “available by phone” at all times outside their normal working hours.

On-call duty time must not violate the employee’s right to daily or weekly rest (Article 151⁵ §2 of the Labour Code). Therefore, if an employee’s daily working time standard is 8 hours, taking into account the minimum daily rest period (11 hours – Article 132 §1 of the Labour Code), the on-call duty period may not exceed 5 hours. The hours during which an employee is required to be on call should be clearly specified by the employer.

A breach of these above provisions may be classified as a violation of working time regulations. Such a violation constitutes an offence against employee rights (Article 281 §1 point 5 of the Labour Code), and in extreme cases may also constitute a criminal offence (Article 218 §1a of the Criminal Code). An employee may also claim compensation for an infringement of their personal rights.

Find more articles in PRO HR July 2026