Part-time employee entitled to increased hours

An employee was hired in a 55% role but worked 601 more hours than agreed over 12 months. Despite the workload, the company denied his request for a position expansion. The company informed him that the need was temporary and had been covered by advertising a short-term vacancy.

The Dispute Resolution Board concluded that he was entitled to a position increase. It referred to the main rule that companies must be able to document that there is no longer a necessity for added work at the time of a request.

The Board emphasised that the company’s documentation was insufficient and failed to prove that anyone had been hired to handle the added workload. There were also no records of the employee’s actual working hours. As a result, the Board relied on the employee’s own records, which showed that the added hours continued even after the short-term vacancy was advertised.

IUNO’s opinion

This decision shows how important it is to keep records of actual working hours. Otherwise, the employees’ records may end up being the only documentation. In Norway, companies must have an overview of the employees' working hours. The same requirement was recently introduced in Denmark following EU developments. We have written about the Danish implementation of the EU directive here.

IUNO recommends that companies document that consistent added work is only temporary to avoid having permanent increases in working time. Failing to acknowledge consistent added work can result in part-time employees being treated less favourably than full-time employees. We have previously written about a similar case here.

[The Dispute Resolution Board's decision of 12 March 2025 in case 20/25]