Working time refers to the amount of time a person a person engages in paid labour in a given time period, including overtime. ILO standards on working time provide the framework for regulating hours of work, daily and weekly rest periods, and annual holidays. Most countries have statutory limits of weekly working hours of 48 hours or less, and the hours actually worked per week in most countries are less than the 48-hour standard established in ILO conventions. These limits serve to promote higher productivity while safeguarding workers’ physical and mental health. Standards on part-time work have become increasingly important instruments for addressing such issues as job creation and promoting equality between men and women.

Two ILO conventions relate to working time:

• ILO Convention on Hours of Work, No. 1 (1919): The convention is the very first ILO convention. It limits the working week to 48 hours and includes provisions on rest days and overtime.
• ILO Convention on Hours of Work (Commerce and Offices), No. 30 (1930): The convention expands Convention No. 1 to additional industries and workers, including office work and commerce.

These conventions have not been widely ratified, except for ILO Convention No.1, which has been ratified by most countries. However, ratification does not ensure that the provision or enforcement of legal protection is of equal efficacy across all countries.

In addition to the ILO instruments, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) also includes relevant provisions regarding hours of work. Article 7 ICESCR affirms the right of everyone to the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work including “[r]est, leisure and reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay, as well as remuneration for public holidays”.

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) set the global standard regarding the responsibility of business to respect human rights in their operations and across their value chains. The Guiding Principles call upon States to consider a smart mix of measures — national and international, mandatory and voluntary — to foster business respect for human rights.

Companies are increasingly subject to non-financial reporting and due diligence obligations in the jurisdictions in which they operate, which often include disclosures on their performance. There are several high-profile examples of national legislation that specifically mandate human rights-related reporting and other positive legal duties, including the United Kingdom Modern Slavery Act 2015, Australian Modern Slavery Act 2018, the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act 2010, the French Corporate Duty of Vigilance Law 2017, German Act on Corporate Due Diligence Obligations in Supply Chains 2021 and the Norwegian Transparency Act 2022.

Also, in 2021 the Netherlands submitted a Bill for Responsible and Sustainable International Business Conduct, and the European Commission announced its Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). This Directive is likely to come into force between 2025 and 2027 and will make human rights and environmental due diligence mandatory for larger companies.

These mandatory due diligence and disclosure laws require companies to publicly communicate their efforts to address actual and potential human rights impacts, including violations in relation to freedom of association. Failure to comply with these obligations leads to real legal risk for companies.

Several factors can lead to long or excessive working hours in business operations and supply chains, including:

• Inadequate legal framework offering a poor standard of protections against excessive working hours. In some countries, labour laws do not limit the number of working hours, though they may advocate ‘standard’ working hours. Therefore, workers are not protected from working more than 48 hours per week as per the maximum defined by the ILO. Although a country may stipulate a standard working week, overtime can be unlimited, leaving workers vulnerable to working excessively long hours without legal protection.
• Poor enforcement of domestic labour laws, including on working hours, due to inadequate training, an under-resourced labour inspectorate or high levels of corruption.
• Cultural acceptance of long working hours in certain industries (e.g. in investment banking) or countries (e.g. Japan) can lead to employees working excessive hours to advance in their careers, often at the expense of a work-life balance or their health and wellbeing. Efforts to shift such cultural acceptances in Japan have intensified over the last two years. Many companies are introducing a four-day working work to try to improve work-life balance and reduce overall working hours.
• Low levels of collective bargaining in specific sectors can increase the risk of long or excessive working hours. Collective bargaining agreements regulate terms and conditions of employment, including guarantees on wages and working hours. In the absence of such agreements, workers may be at risk of working excessive hours, or not receive overtime rates for extra hours worked.
• ‘Zero Hours’ contracts are legal in many countries, where a worker signs a contract of employment with an employer without the guarantee of regular hours of work. This can result in workers needing to work excessive hours in short periods of time when work is available or going weeks without regular hours and thus suffering from low/no income.
• Low wages can lead to longer working hours as workers have to clock more hours to make an adequate wage for themselves or their families. Increased wages or a living wage can help reduce the need for extra hours. Migrant workers in low wage occupations, in particular, are at risk of working excessive hours.
• A large informal workforce can lead to excessive working hours as undocumented or informal workers are unlikely to have contracts or labour protections and are unable to complain if there is a problem. That being said, time-related underemployment is also common in the informal workforce – this is often due to women informally contributing to their family’s income.
• Seasonal or irregular work can lead to periods of excessive or long working hours, driven by the need for companies to produce as much as possible in short deadlines. Examples include harvest seasons for agricultural workers or holiday periods for hospitality workers.
• Cost pressure in internationally operating companies, which is passed on to suppliers, tight lead times and late approval (or continuous alteration) of product specification can lead to excessive overtime in supplier factories.
• Inefficient processes and poor human resource management at supplier factories can further exacerbate the problems with the buying practices of purchasing companies and lead to reduced productivity and ultimately excessive overtime.
• Cost of living spikes amid rising inflation have affected the work-life balance of many workers as inadequate pay increases mean workers are unable to afford basic necessities. Workers in the gig economy are taking on multiple jobs, or starting small businesses to make ends meet – these factors are contributing to a poor work-life balance.

Multinational companies often come across excessive working hours in their supply chain, where they may not have direct control over production and timelines. This can occur in suppliers’ own operations or, for example, when suppliers contract out some of their work to home workers or smaller factories. Excessive working hours can, however, also occur within company operations — for example, driven by local norms, a culture of excessive working hours (e.g. in the security or services industries ) or by the remoteness of company operations (e.g. in oil and gas). In the maritime travel industry, COVID-19 related travel restrictions have also given rise to extended periods of time beyond working hours and work beyond the expirations of their contracts.

Challenges to ensuring decent working time exist across many industries. High risk sectors include agriculture and fishing, fashion and apparel, electronics manufacturing, financial services, and construction and infrastructure. In particular, the first three sectors pose significant challenges to global sourcing companies. To identify potential risk factors for other industries, companies can access the CSR Risk Check.

The agriculture and fishing industries are inherently prone to long or excessive working hours due to the nature of the work undertaken. Industry-specific risk factors include:

• Season-dependent: The seasonal nature of harvests, gestation of animals and migration of fish means that agricultural and fishery work is often concentrated around specific periods of time, resulting in long working hours during those times.
• Piece-rate pay: Many workers will be paid based on the weight or quantity of the goods produced, which further encourages working longer hours to increase income.
• Informal workers: A high proportion of informal workers and family/community workers (who do not have social protections or contracts) increases the risk of excessive working time. These risks are also often gendered, as women and girls are expected to support family farms before undertaking other tasks, while men and boys are more often able to prioritize other activities like school and socializing.
• Time-related underemployment: This can often lead to people working numerous part-time jobs – these jobs add up and the workers face long working hours to make ends meet.

The fashion and apparel industry is often linked to excessive working hours in supply chains, with employees working between 10 and 12 hours — and sometimes 16 to 18 hours — a day. Industry-specific risk factors include:

• Demand fluctuations: Fluctuations in demand due to the varied output of clothing (winter, spring, autumn and summer), mostly at the beginning of each season, increase the risks of excessive working hours. Companies sourcing from fashion and apparel suppliers may often demand that the products are manufactured within a short time frame. In turn, suppliers are bound by contractual agreementsto honour any commitments made in this respect, but contractual loopholes are often misused by companies to cancel orders and avoid their due diligence obligations. Seasonal work requires that employees work intensively and for long hours in a short space of time to meet demand.
• Forced overtime: Overtime is sometimes forced and often paid below legal requirements. Calculations of overtime payments are often compromised by a lack of social dialogue, poor general communication between workers and managers, and workers’ lack of knowledge about their legal rights to overtime payments.
• Outsourcing: The industry uses a lot of outsourcing and home working, which makes it hard to trace where a product was made and by whom. Informal and home workers often lack labour protections and are vulnerable to excessive working hours.
• Piece-rate pay: Piece-rate pay is pervasive in the garment manufacturing industry and is commonly found among factory-based workers and home-based workers. While research on the impact of piece-rate pay on working hours and overtime is scarce, the pressure for low-wage workers to reach target earnings drives the occurrence of excessive working hours.

Electronics manufacturing is also often linked to working time violations, particularly in supply chains. Research by Electronics Watch has found that in China, working weeks of 60-80 hours, including 20-40 hours of overtime, are common in electronics factories.

Industry-specific risk factors include:

• Strict timelines: The problem of excessive working hours in electronics manufacturing is often driven by strict timelines imposed on manufacturers to meet consumer demand.
• Competitive job market: Competition for jobs in the industry can be strong, particularly with respect to famous brands. This can lead to workers being prepared to work excessive hours without adequate rest.
• Student workers: In China, student workers are given compulsory placements in electronics manufacturing factories, modelled as “internships”, where they may be forced to work excessive hours and often go unpaid or earn extremely low wages.
• Forced overtime: Similar to the fashion and apparel industry, overtime is sometimes forced and often paid below legal requirements or industry standards.

This section outlines due diligence steps that companies can take to prevent working time violations in their operations and supply chains. The described due diligence steps are aligned with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). Further information on UNGPs is provided in the ‘Key Human Rights Due Diligence Frameworks’ section below or in the Introduction.

While the below steps provide guidance on working time in particular, it is generally more resource-efficient for companies to ‘streamline’ their human rights due diligence processes by also identifying and addressing other relevant human rights issues (e.g. child labour, forced labour, discrimination, freedom of association) at the same time.

Businesses should have a policy that details the maximum working hours for workers, including overtime limits and pay. Workers who have their own contracts are likely to have their hours of work stipulated in the contract. However, many workers globally — particularly in global supply chains — will not have contracts, so it is important for businesses to have clear policies on working time that set company expectations.

Businesses should ensure that their policies comply with local laws in their countries of operation, as well as applicable collective bargaining agreements. Where the local law affords limited protection to workers, company policies should include requirements that are in line with ILO standards — for instance offering more rest days or better overtime rates than local law. Some industries and roles will need to have exceptions for certain roles — such as shift workers or night workers — and should ensure these workers’ rights are also protected.

Some companies have integrated their commitments to decent working time into their human rights policies — for example, Heineken. Where companies do not have a human rights policy, working time is often addressed in other documentation, such as a business code of conduct or ethics and/or a supplier code of conduct (e.g. Inditex). For example, Marks and Spencer outlines working time requirements for its food suppliers in the Sustainability Reference Guide for Suppliers.

Businesses may also consider aligning their working time policies with relevant industry-wide or cross-industry policy commitments, for example:

• Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) Base Code
• Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) Code of Conduct
• amfori BSCI Code of Conduct
• Fair Labor Association (FLA) Code of Conduct

Businesses may want to check the ILO Helpdesk for Business, which provides answers to the most common questions that businesses may encounter while developing their working time policies — or integrating decent working time commitments into other policy documents.

Understanding the causes of excessive working hours or overtime is key to addressing the problems and their impacts on workers. This should involve stakeholder participation — including workers, managers and industry representatives in impact assessment studies.

Impact assessments may need to be handled sensitively as some workers may be choosing to work excessive hours or additional overtime due to personal circumstances (such as being the sole provider for a family). Alternatively, some workers may be working excessive hours against their will, under conditions of bonded or forced labour. Discussions with workers, therefore, need to be mindful of these risks to make sure workers are not put at risk or embarrassed to speak about their experiences.

Working time can be addressed in a specific impact assessment or combined with a broader human/labour rights impact assessment (e.g. Nestlé, Unilever and Lidl). Some companies may also choose to conduct a desk-based risk assessment on the likelihood and prevalence of working time violations in their countries of operation and supply chain, which may be helpful to understand a company’s exposure to these risks but may not fully meet the requirements of the UNGPs — including, for example, the requirement to engage with potentially affected stakeholders.

The results of the impact assessment should be used to prioritize improvement actions throughout the business and in supply chains. Actions within own operations may include:

• Hiring more employees to reduce the burden of work on the current employees;
• Introducing flexible working hours (e.g. Delland Unilever);
• Supporting workers who might otherwise be compelled to work excessive hours — for example, Avivahas become a Living Hours Employer in the UK, which means low-wage workers have additional protections, such as pay for shifts cancelled outside of an agreed notice period and guaranteed pay for each working week; and
• Analysing production processes, together with workers, to find inefficiencies and areas for improvement.

Whilst taking action on working time may increase costs at first, this may be compensated via increased productivity, which in turn can reduce the need for long working hours. Investing in improving productivity can ultimately benefit workers and result in cost savings for companies.

With regard to supply chains, companies should review their own procurement and ordering practices (going beyond supplier audits) to reduce excessive overtime. Tight lead times, late sample approval and last-minute alterations to product specification put increased pressure on factories to deliver orders by resorting to overtime. On the other hand, poor processes and a low-skilled workforce in supplier factories with high employee turnover may result in low efficiency of production, long overtime hours and low pay.

Setting realistic lead times and sticking to an agreed timescale should be complemented by building suppliers’ capacity to improve productivity and efficiency. These measures could help reduce working time in supply chains without an impact on workers’ wages. This, however, requires a different procurement approach — one that is based not only on cost reduction and compliance but also on long-term capability development. For example, Gap has introduced the Better Buying initiative to address the impact its buying practices have on garment manufacturers’ working time.

Tracking working time can be done in several ways. Firstly, requesting time sheets or logs from employees gives an indication of working time. However, these may be falsified to hide longer working time. Secondly, it may be helpful to speak to workers in interviews or focus groups. Additionally, multi-stakeholder groups can shed light on working time and practices as workers may not feel comfortable speaking about their hours alone, but more confident when in a group with other workers and civil society or union representatives.

Audits and social monitoring are common ways to check performance in the first tier of the supply chain (e.g. Unilever and Cisco). Such monitoring or audits can be undertaken internally by the company or a third party. A common approach or first step taken by companies is to issue self-assessment questionnaires (SAQs) to suppliers, requesting information and evidence on their working hours. Repeated SAQs can give insight into improvements in supplier management systems and let suppliers self-report on actual or potential impacts.

Where SAQ results warrant it, companies can carry out on-the-ground or (particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic) remote suppliers audits. Common supplier audit frameworks that span most industries and include working time indicators include SMETA audits and SA8000 accredited audits.

If shortcomings are identified, corrective action plans (CAPs) should be developed jointly with the supplier, setting out clear targets and milestones for improvement. Progress should then be tracked regularly to ensure CAP completion. Setting SMART targets helps objectively track performance. SMART targets are those that are: specific, measurable, attainable, resourced and time-bound. Responsibility for data collection should be clearly allocated to relevant roles within the company and reported with a set frequency (for instance once a month).

Although both SAQs and audits are commonly used by companies in various industries, both tools have limitations in their ability to uncover hidden violations, including violations of working time. Unannounced audits somewhat mitigate this problem but even these are not always effective at identifying violations, given that an auditor tends to spend only limited time on-site. Furthermore, human rights violations, including excessive working hours, often happen further down supply chains, whereas audits often only cover ‘Tier 1’ suppliers.

New tools such as technology-enabled worker surveys/‘worker voice’ tools allow real-time monitoring and partly remedy the problems of traditional audits. An increasing number of companies complement traditional audits with ‘worker voice’ surveys (e.g. Unilever and VF Corporation), which can be easily adapted to different languages to accommodate workers’ needs.

Some companies go further and adopt ‘beyond audit’ approaches, which are built on proactive collaboration with suppliers rather than on supplier monitoring (‘carrots’ rather than ‘sticks’). Collaborating with other stakeholders, including workers’ organizations, law enforcement authorities, labour inspectorates and non-governmental organizations to proactively identify, remediate and prevent violations of working time can also prove to be effective in tracking performance on working time. Partnering with other stakeholders to design an effective monitoring mechanism will allow companies to better track progress.

Companies are expected to communicate their performance on working time in a formal public report, which can be achieved via companies’ broader sustainability or human rights reporting (e.g. Unilever, Cisco and Nike), or in their annual Communication on Progress (CoP) in implementing the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact. Additionally, other forms of communication may include in-person meetings, online dialogues and consultation with affected stakeholders.

Many businesses have grievance processes that encompass multiple human and labour rights issues. Grievance mechanisms should be designed to accommodate the needs of workers, and so should be made available in the languages of workers and in accessible formats. Workers may not feel able to report issues to their managers or superiors and should be able to report concerns via other means, such as telephone hotlines or websites. Worker voice technologies are becoming popular ways to empower workers to report violations of their rights. Unions or local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can also represent effective grievance mechanisms if they are accessible and trusted by workers.

Where businesses find they have overworked employees in their operations or contributed to overwork in their supply chain, remedy must be made. Companies must provide comprehensive remedy that provides missing overtime pay, time-off in lieu of excess hours worked previously, as well as altering contracts and company operating practices so that excessive hours cannot happen again. For example, according to its FLA re-accreditation report, over the period of 2008-2018, Nike has remediated 19 of 21 overtime violations, as well as three out of three violations in which workers were provided no rest day within a seven-day period.

This section includes examples of company actions to address the problem of excessive working hours and encourage a better work-life balance for workers in company operations and supply chains.

Examples of further guidance on working time include:

• United Nations Global Compact and UNICEF, Family-Friendly Workplaces: Policies and Practices to Advance Decent Work in Global Supply Chains: A report including suggestions on flexible working time and arrangements to allow for a healthy family life for workers.
• ILO, Overtime Work: A Review of the Literature and Initial Empirical Analysis: A report on overtime and an overview of legal frameworks in six countries: Denmark, Germany, Romania, Spain, Turkey and the UK.
• ILO, Telework in the 21^st Century: An Evolutionary Perspective: A review of different national approaches and experiences to teleworking, or remote working.
• ILO, Practical Guide on Teleworking during the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond: The purpose of this guide is to provide practical and actionable recommendations for effective teleworking. The guide also includes several case examples regarding how employers and policymakers have been handling teleworking during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• ILO, Working Anytime, Anywhere: The Effects on the World of Work: A report on drivers, incidence/intensity and effects of telework on working time, individual and organizational performance, work-life balance and occupational health and wellbeing.
• ILO, Work Sharing during the Great Recession: New Developments and Beyond: A report outlining the concept and history of work sharing, how it can be used as a strategy for preserving jobs and its potential for increasing employment.
• ILO, Working Time and the Future of Work: A report on trends and developments in working time arrangements and their implications for the future of work.
• ILO, Working Time, Health and Safety: A Research Synthesis Paper: This report provides a synthesis of previous research examining the link between different aspects of working time and outcomes in terms of workers’ health, well-being and workplace safety.
• ILO, Decent Working Time: Balancing Workers’ Needs with Business Requirements: This booklet summarizes five dimensions of decent working time, and how these principles can be put into action.
• ILO and IFC, Better Work Discussion Paper Series, No. 2: Excessive Overtime, Workers and Productivity: Evidence and Implications for Better Work: This paper presents a literature review on the issue of working time regulations and the relationship between excessive overtime and labour productivity, looking at the implications of long working hours on factory performance.
• Our World in Data, Working Hours: This report explores data on working hours across countries, with interactive charts showing working hours throughout history.
• SME Compass, Standards Compass: This online tool offers guidance on what to pay attention to when selecting sustainability standards or when participating in multi-stakeholder initiatives. It allows comparing standards and initiatives with respect to their contribution to human rights due diligence and their potential limitations.
• SME Compass, Due Diligence Compass: This online tool offers guidance on the overall human rights due diligence process by taking businesses through five key due diligence phases.
• SME Compass, Downloads: Practical guides and checklists are available for download on the SME compass website to embed due diligence processes, improve supply chain management and make mechanisms more effective.
• ILO Helpdesk for Business, Country Information Hub: This resource can be used to inform human rights due diligence, providing specific country information on different labour rights.