Standby duty

Contents on this page:

• About standby duty
• Standby duty compensation
• Disruption
• Weekly rest period
• Daily rest period

About standby duty

Standy duty organisations exist within the Central Administration (LU Estates and the Division of IT), MAX IV, the Faculty of Medicine (Med-service, CRC) and standby duty may only be implemented in these organisations. In order to begin implementing standby duty in a new organisation, this is negotiated by local employee organisations and the HR Division. 

Standby duty at Lund University is governed by local collective bargaining agreements. 

Standby duty refers to time outside regular working hours that the employee is obliged, when summoned, to be available to travel to the workplace or other specified location, or after notification to remedy issues remotely when possible.

Standby duty is used as a means to prevent and remedy situations that could otherwise result in operational disruptions or damage.

Standby duty compensation

For the time you are to be reachable and prepared to go on duty, an hourly rate of standby duty compensation is payable. The rate varies according to whether it is a normal working day, weekend, or public holiday. The compensation is applied for via Primula not later than the week following completed standby duty.  

Compensation amount

Compensation for standby duty is paid at the following rates:

Compensation amount on public holidays

On public holidays, the following amounts are paid per completed hour: 

Disruption

In the event of disruption when the employee goes on duty, overtime compensation is payable. If the work begins or ends between 22:00 and 06:00, each partial 30-minute period is to be compensated with a full half hour.  

If overtime work is started several times during the same 30-minute period, the total amount of time during that period is to be added together before rounding off. At other times, i.e. between 06:00 and 22:00, overtime is paid according to time actually worked, with no rounding off. 

The following applies if attendance is required, if the work is done remotely, or if there are calls or similar that cannot wait. 

• Employees on standby who need to present themselves at the workplace or other location specified by the employer to remedy a disruption receive overtime compensation for the time between the receipt of the summons and their return to the original location.
• Employees on standby who can remedy the disruption remotely receive overtime compensation for the time worked. 
• Receiving telephone calls, error messages or similar is not considered to be a disruption if they do not lead to measures being taken. Calls between 22:00 and 06:00, however, give entitlement to overtime compensation even if they do not lead to measures being taken.

Once the standby duty is finished, apply for overtime compensation using the ”standby duty” section in Primula. You can choose to apply for money or compensatory leave ou apply for overtime compensation in money or alternatively in compensatory leave.

Do not register disruptions on your flexitime sheet. Instead, these must be registered in Primula. 

Simple or qualified overtime? 

The distinction between simple and qualified overtime depends on when the overtime is carried out

Qualified overtime refers to work carried out during the following times:

• between 19:00 on Friday and 07:00 on Monday,
• between 19:00 on the day before 6 January, 1 May, Ascension Day, or 6 June, and 07:00 and the next regular working day,
• between 19:00 on Maundy Thursday and 07:00 on the day after Easter Monday,
• between 19:00 on the day before Midsummer’s Eve, Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve and 07:00 on the next regular working day

and

• any other time between 22:00 and 06:00.

Other hours are considered simple overtime.

Weekly rest period 

Weekly rest period is intended to safeguard a regular recovery of at least 36 hours of continuous rest during a seven-day period. The rules that apply for weekly rest period during standby duty at Lund University is governed by local collective bargaining agreements.  

To safeguard sufficient weekly rest, it is important to determine when the new week begins for the organisation in question. This is stated in the organisation’s procedures for standby duty. The employer bases the frequency of assigned standby on the number of employees who will have standby duty in the current standby schedule.

If there are six employees in the standby duty group, each one will be assigned standby duty every sixth week. If the employer approves an employee’s request to swap a week with another employee, standby is still allocated every sixth week even if one of the employees is on standby more frequently than the stated interval for a certain period. 

If there are eight employees in the standby group and standby is assigned to four employees during an initial period and four employees for a subsequent period, the frequency of standby duty remains at every eighth week. 

Frequency: Standby every fifth week or less

When standby duty is carried out at a frequency of every five weeks or less, or when the standby is of a minor nature (maximum eight hours of standby per calendar day), the weekly rest period is planned during the standby period (normally from 19:00 on Saturday to 07:00 on Monday). See figure 1 below.

The weekly rest period is, however, to be deemed disrupted when the disruption leads to measures being taken and the employee performs active work during the time the regular weekly rest period usually falls (between Saturday 19:00 and Monday 7:00). If the weekly rest period has been disrupted, a non-working day is to be allocated after the completed standby week, in direct connection to a regular weekly rest period. See figure 2 below.

Frequency: Every fourth week

When standby duty is undertaken more frequently than every fourth week, the weekly rest period may not be assigned to time on standby duty. This means that employees in such cases will have their weekly rest period scheduled after completing the standby week (before the regular weekly rest period) and will then have a double weekly rest period (72 hours) in a continuous sequence. The same rule applies if the employee’s standby duty exceeds seven days in a row in exceptional cases. See figure 3: 

Daily rest period 

Daily rest period is intended to safeguard a regular recovery of at least 11 hours of continuous rest during a 24-hour period. Compensation for standby duty is governed by the local collective agreement. 

To safeguard adequate the daily rest period, it is necessary to know which set time the organisation applies for the start of the day, since this time is the beginning and end point of the 24-hour period. This is to be stated in the organisation’s procedures for standby duty. 

If disruption occurs when the daily rest period is planned during standby duty, compensatory rest is given, scheduled in conjunction with the next daily rest period. Compensatory rest equates to the time that the daily rest period was reduced by because of the disruption. This means that if a disruption lasting one and a half hours has taken place during the time when the daily rest period was planned, compensatory rest of one and a half hours is given ahead of the next daily rest period. 

If special grounds exist or if additional compensatory rest for disrupted daily rest is to be allocated, the compensatory rest is, if possible, to be allocated in connection with the next regular daily rest period or the next regular weekly rest period.

Reinforced daily rest period

At Lund University there is also what is known as a reinforced daily rest period, which means that for disruptions that took place to any extent between 00:00 and 05:00, compensatory rest period of seven hours is to follow, provided that an eleven-hour continuous daily rest period was not otherwise given.  Exceptions may only be made if there are no special grounds to prevent compensatory rest from being allocated.