Hotel staff scheduling in Greece: the Digital Work Card, seasonal staff, Sundays and the sixth day

02

Preparation time and flexible arrival

• Entering the premises, changing into uniform when the job requires it, walking to the workstation and washing at the end are not working time; in accommodation and food service they take no more than 10 minutes before and 10 after, unless objective reasons justify more (circular 3496/2025).
• By express agreement between employer and employee, flexible arrival of up to 120 minutes may apply, counted from the declared start onwards: with 30 minutes and hours of 09:00–17:00, the employee arrives 09:00–09:30 and leaves 17:00–17:30 (circular 3496/2025).
• Flexible arrival does not allow clocking in before the declared start; without changing the hours first on the advance system, that is a mismatch that can be penalised (circular 3496/2025).

03

Sundays and public holidays

• Hotels are exempt from compulsory Sunday and public-holiday rest (Labour Code, article 210 §1 θ) and may operate at all hours on all days, subject to labour law (Law 4177/2013, article 15Α §2).
• Work on a Sunday or public holiday is paid +75% (article 219).
• More than 5 hours on a Sunday earns 24 hours of compensatory rest on another working day of the same week (article 212).

04

The sixth day: the exceptions do not apply to hotels

The rules allowing an exceptional +40% sixth day in businesses on a five-day week do not cover staff of hotel and food-service businesses (articles 191 §4 and 192 §4), nor does the +30% rule for a sixth day in breach of the five-day week (article 196). Full time is 40 hours on a five-day or six-day week (article 189), as set by the collective agreement that binds you.

05

Seasonal staff

• In seasonal hotel businesses, written part-time contracts are made for a daily or weekly work period (article 113 §5).
• The working-time arrangement — more hours at the peak, fewer later — also applies to seasonal businesses (article 202 §9).
• In tourism, where a rise in workload is foreseeable, derogations from daily and weekly rest, breaks and night-work limits are allowed only by collective agreement or works-council agreement and with equivalent compensatory rest (article 182 §2).

06

Split shifts

• On a full-time split shift the two parts are at least 3 hours apart (article 172 §3), and the card is punched four times: in and out for each part (circular 3496/2025).
• Part-time staff with shorter daily hours work one continuous block a day (article 113 §7).

07

The schedule in practice

• Plan the season’s peak and the Sundays early, and put each Sunday’s compensatory rest in the same schedule.
• In 365shift the two parts of a split shift are two shifts on the same day, and the rest check treats them as one working day: it asks for the 11 hours between days and warns about parts less than 3 hours apart.
• The hours panel shows each employee’s working, night, Sunday and public-holiday hours: the Code’s nine holidays automatically, plus any you add in the Holidays tab.