11 hours of rest: The most common scheduling error in security services

Under § 5 Arbeitszeitgesetz, employees must have an uninterrupted rest period of at least 11 hours after the end of their daily working time. Uninterrupted means that even a brief assignment, a handover, or a work call can interrupt the rest period and cause it to start again.

A breach cannot be identified from either individual shift. Both shifts can be entirely permissible on their own. Only the interval between them creates the problem, and that interval does not appear in any row of the schedule.

The classic example: Late shift until 22 at site A, early shift from 6 at site B. That provides 8 hours of rest, which is a clear breach. Anyone who plans the sites separately will never see it. Calculate it yourself with our ArbZG calculator.

§ 5 Abs. 2 ArbZG permits a reduction of up to one hour in certain sectors, to 10 hours, if each reduction is compensated within a calendar month or within four weeks by extending another rest period to at least 12 hours.

The second part of the sentence is important. The reduction is not a free pass, but is tied to documented compensation. Anyone relying on it must be able to provide evidence.

The only reliable approach is to check at the moment of assignment, across all sites, before the schedule is published. Balerion Security checks every assignment for rest periods, maximum working time, and double bookings and warns you immediately, see scheduling software.