Time tracking and labor law glossary

The terms used in time tracking and French labor law, defined simply — with the relevant labor code articles cited where they exist.

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Unauthorized absence: An absence not declared in advance and not covered by an acceptable reason (sick leave, family event...). Different from leave (planned) and a justified absence (explained afterward).
Justified absence: An absence declared afterward with an acceptable reason, such as sick leave. Unlike leave, it isn't known about in advance.
Clock-in anomaly: A gap automatically detected between an employee's actual clock-ins and their contract: a late arrival, a missed clock-in, an undeclared absence.
On-call duty ("astreinte"): A period during which an employee, without being at their workplace, must remain reachable to intervene if needed. It doesn't count as effective working time in France, except for the actual intervention time.
Clock-in / time tracking: The act of recording, via a physical device or software, an employee's arrival, break and departure time, to calculate their actual working time.
CNIL: France's national data protection authority, which oversees the processing of personal data, including clock-in data (proportionality, informing employees, retention periods).
Leave: An absence planned and approved in advance, as opposed to a justified or unauthorized absence, both declared afterward.
Annual overtime allowance: The cap on overtime hours an employee can work in a year without triggering extra obligations for the employer — 220 hours by default in France, absent a collective agreement (article D3121-24).
Part-time contract: An employment contract with hours below the legal (35h/week) or the collectively agreed duration applicable at the company.
Mandatory compensatory rest: Extra rest owed to an employee whose overtime exceeds the annual allowance, on top of the salary premium already owed on those hours.
Works council ("CSE"): The French employee representative body, mandatory from 11 employees, consulted in particular before setting up a clock-in system at companies with 50 or more employees.
Debit and credit hours: The gap between an employee's actual worked time over a period and what their contract expects — a credit means more worked than expected, a debit means less.
Legal working duration: The reference duration of effective working time for a full-time employee in France: 35 hours a week (article L3121-27). Beyond that, every hour is overtime.
Day-rate contract ("forfait jours"): A time-tracking regime counting days rather than hours, reserved for autonomous managers under a collective agreement, capped at 218 days a year in France (article L3121-58).
Overtime: Hours of effective work performed beyond the legal duration (35h/week), premium-paid at 25% for the first 8 hours then 50% beyond, unless a collective agreement sets a different rate (article L3121-36).
Collective schedule: A schedule identical for every employee in a department, which exempts the employer from a detailed individual record — simply posting the hours is enough in that case (article L3171-1).
Individualized schedule: A situation where employees in a department don't follow the same schedule — as soon as that's the case, the employer must set up an individual time record for each of them (article L3171-2).
Overtime premium: The percentage applied to the normal hourly rate for each overtime hour — 25% then 50% by default in France, never below 10% even with a collective agreement.
GDPR: The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, governing the collection and processing of personal data, applicable to clock-in data like any other HR data.
Replacement compensatory rest: Rest granted instead of the salary premium for an overtime hour, when a collective agreement provides for it — replaces the premium rather than adding to it.
Daily rest: The minimum rest between two working days, set at 11 consecutive hours — not to be confused with a break, which is shorter and taken within the same day.
Time tracking: The set of methods (clock-in, sign-in sheet, self-reporting) letting an employer record the time actually worked by employees, legally required in many situations in France (articles L3171-1 to L3171-4).
Remote work: A work arrangement where an employee performs their duties outside the company's premises, under the same time-tracking obligations as on-site.
Break: An interruption of at least 20 consecutive minutes, owed as soon as daily working time reaches 6 hours (article L3121-16), generally unpaid unless otherwise agreed.
Effective working time: The time during which an employee is at the employer's disposal and follows their instructions without being able to freely pursue personal activities (article L3121-1).