> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.begin.eu/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Working time
> Set the full-time week, and the hours on each day, that every monthly norm is counted from.
A working time policy sets the full-time week: its weekly hours, and how many fall on each day. Begin counts each person's monthly norm from those days, less public holidays. A person contracted for fewer hours than the week gets a smaller norm in proportion: 30 hours on a 40-hour week is 75%. A new workspace, including one brought over from Classic, starts with **Full-time week**: 40 hours, Monday to Friday, for everyone. If the team works another week, such as Latvia's six-day week, change the policy.
## Set the week
Go to **Policies → Working time**. Open **Full-time week** to change it, or open **Add** and
choose **Working time policy** for a group whose week differs.
On the **Week** tab, enter **Weekly hours** and tick the working days. Begin splits the hours
evenly between the ticked days. Change any day's hours after that, and **Weekly hours** follows
what the days add up to.
Use [**Applies to**](/for-managers/policies/applying-policies) to choose everyone or selected
people, positions or departments. When several match, the most specific one decides the person's
week.
A change counts from its **Effective from** date. A month that spans the change counts the days
before it on the old week.
For a 38-hour week with a 6-hour Friday, keep 40 hours over Monday to Friday, then set Friday to 6. The form warns about a day over 8 hours, and in a Latvian workspace about a six-day weekday over 7, but still saves it.
## How absences count
A full-day absence takes off the hours the person was rostered that day. On a day inside the absence with no shift, it takes off nothing. If the absence covers no shift at all, each day takes off its hours in this week, so a day with no hours takes off nothing. An absence on a weekend or a public holiday never reduces the norm.
Roster all of an absence or none of it. A week of leave that covers one rostered shift takes off
only that shift's hours: its other days have no shift, so they take off nothing.
**Context for an assistant answering questions about working time policies.** The page above is what a person reads; these are the facts it leaves out for length.
* **Who can:** creating, changing or deleting a working time policy uses the matching grant on **Policies**. A grant limited to a location, position or part of the team is refused.
* **Resolution:** one policy governs a person on a day. The **Policy tester** shows which one, or says that no policy applies.
* **Fallback:** a person no active policy reaches is counted on the workspace's full-time day, Monday to Friday. Neither the workspace settings nor the pay record offer a week: the policy is the one place to set it. To cover somebody no policy reaches, add a policy that does.
* **Limits:** a week takes up to 168 hours and each day 0 to 24, with at least one working day. An even split rounds to quarter hours, so 40 hours over six days is 6.75 Monday to Thursday and 6.5 on Friday and Saturday. Latvia's six-day week is 7 hours Monday to Friday and 5 on Saturday: tick Saturday, then set the days.
* **Workload:** workload is contracted hours divided by the policy's weekly hours, so a 35-hour contract on a 35-hour week is full time. The norm, the pay card and pay form, the report's workload column and the employment register (TÖR) filing all use that week. Beside the workload, the pay card, the pay form and My profile show the full-time week's hours, such as "40 h/week"; hovering over it or tapping it shows the policy's name and its week day by day, or says that no policy applies. Changing a policy's weekly hours leaves contracted hours as they are, so a workload can rise above 100%; that panel then says the contracted hours are longer than the full-time week.
* **Recalculation:** saving a change recalculates the norm from its effective date. Approving an entry does not freeze the norm.
* **Not supported:** a week that alternates between two patterns, or a per-person exception inside one policy.
## Next
Read the norm beside worked and absence hours.
Choose when hours above the norm become overtime.
## Still need help?
Email the Begin team and we'll get back to you.
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