Overtime Tracking: Turkish Labour Law Art. 41 and Digital Approval

In many companies, overtime starts with a casual request: “Could you stay a bit later tonight?” At month end, payroll then tries to reconstruct who stayed how long from emails, chat messages and managers’ memories. The result is missed payments, disputes and records that are hard to defend in an inspection.

Yet the rules for overtime are clearly set out in Turkish Labour Law. This article summarises article 41, what to watch for when keeping records, and how tying overtime to a request–approval flow brings order to it.

Article 41: what counts as overtime?

Overtime is work exceeding 45 hours per week. Where an averaging (balancing) arrangement applies, work that does not exceed a weekly average of 45 hours over the period is not overtime. If the contract sets weekly hours below 45, the hours between that figure and 45 are treated as “extra hours” rather than overtime.

Pay and time off in lieu

• Each overtime hour is paid at the normal hourly rate plus 50%.
• Extra hours (below the 45-hour line) carry a 25% premium.
• Instead of pay, the employee may choose time off: 1.5 hours for every overtime hour, 1 hour 15 minutes for every extra hour, to be used within six months.

Limits and consent

• Total overtime cannot exceed 270 hours per year.
• Overtime requires the employee’s consent; the regulation expects it in writing and kept in the personnel file.
• Daily working time, overtime included, cannot exceed 11 hours.
• Certain groups, such as employees under 18 and pregnant employees, may not work overtime.

Common mistakes in overtime records

• Verbal instructions: no record of who asked for the overtime and why.
• Reconstructing later: entries are made from memory at month end, with inconsistent dates.
• Not watching the 270-hour cap: the yearly total is invisible until it’s too late.
• Lost time off in lieu: the entitlement of employees who choose time off goes untracked.
• Confusing approvals: the manager’s approval and the employee’s written consent are treated as the same thing.

Why overtime grows, and how to reduce it

Recording overtime correctly matters, but so does understanding why it happens. Persistent overtime is often a symptom of poor planning, uneven workload or approvals that arrive at the last minute. With consistent records, the answers to a few questions become visible:

• Which teams and which periods see the most overtime?
• Is it always the same people, or is the load seasonal?
• Was the reason plannable work or an unexpected breakdown?

Those answers let you base capacity planning on real data. Our article on workload analysis and resource planning is a good place to start.

Don’t forget time off in lieu

Employees who choose time off instead of pay must use it within six months. Tracking those hours separately from the annual leave balance avoids confusion.

Building a digital request–approval flow

1. Collect annual written consent at the start of the year and keep it on file.
2. Record each request with date, duration and a short explanation.
3. Manager approval: the manager approves or rejects with a reason.
4. Monthly report: approved records go to payroll in the same format every month.
5. Watch yearly totals per person so you see who is approaching 270 hours.

Overtime in HibritİK

The HibritİK Leave Management module covers overtime with a deliberately simple flow:

• The employee submits overtime as a request on the web or in the mobile app.
• Their manager approves or rejects it, and the employee is notified.
• Overtime records can be exported to Excel alongside leave requests, balances and leave cost, so payroll works from one file.

HibritİK is not a time-and-attendance or access-control system: it doesn’t read clock-in data from devices and it doesn’t calculate payroll. What it does is record who requested overtime, when, and who approved it in a traceable way. The Excel export makes it easy to hand over to your payroll software or accountant.

For the leave side of the equation, see our annual leave calculation guide.

What should the approving manager check?

Manager approval shouldn’t be a rubber stamp. Three questions before approving protect both compliance and the team’s wellbeing:

• Was the work really necessary, and is the reason clearly recorded?
• Could the employee’s working day have exceeded 11 hours?
• Has the same person done frequent overtime recently, and could some of the work go to someone else?

Writing down the reason when a request is rejected heads off disagreements before they start.

Quick checklist

• Is every employee’s annual overtime consent on file?
• Are requests entered the same day, or the next day at the latest?
• Does every request have a named approver?
• Are time-off-in-lieu entitlements tracked separately?
• Does the monthly report reach payroll in a consistent format?

Wrapping up

Overtime can start with goodwill and end in a dispute. When the record is created at the time and the approval chain is clear, both employee and employer are protected. Check the pricing page for a plan that fits your team, or start your 14-day free trial today.

Note: this article is general information, not legal advice. For pay calculations and special cases, consult an employment law professional or your accountant.