What is on-call duty (Rufbereitschaft)?

In employment law, on-call duty sits between leisure and work. In standby duty (Bereitschaftsdienst) the employer determines where the employee stays, which is why it counts as working time in full. In on-call duty, under the German Working Hours Act only the actual call-out including travel counts as working time; a call-out does, however, interrupt the eleven-hour rest period under Section 5 ArbZG. Pay and supplements are set by collective or employment contracts. The line is blurred: if employees have to be on site so quickly that they cannot in fact choose where they stay, case law treats it as standby duty. This overview is not legal advice.

The strain comes from being reachable, not from the call-out. Anyone on call cannot switch off; every ring could be an alarm. In security services, “on-call duty at least one week per month” is part of a dispatcher's job profile (job ad, Contact Sicherheit on join.com, as of 10/2026). Scheduling vendors warn that changes “organised only by phone or chat” quickly lead to breaches of the Working Hours Act (secplaner.de). In small companies the owner often carries on-call duty personally, week after week.

Most calls during on-call duty are not emergencies. Sick calls for the early shift, questions about the shift plan, a client with a complaint, key questions, sales calls. The real cases, such as a night guard dropping out, a water leak at a site or an alarm, are the minority. But they must reach the right person immediately, with all the details needed to act. Every call that goes unanswered at night comes back as a problem in the morning: an unstaffed site, an annoyed client, a lost enquiry.

Empfango automates the first-line intake. Every call is answered, the request is recorded with name, callback number, site and facts and handled by fixed rules: sick calls and routine questions go to dispatch as a message via WhatsApp, Telegram or email; urgent reports are forwarded by Empfango to the on-call number with a ring timeout, and a callback is logged if nobody picks up. The on-call person is only woken for cases they have to decide. Every conversation starts with a fixed announcement about the use of AI. Transcript and summary of every call are in the dashboard in the morning, so the handover to the day shift is complete.

Practice and set-up are shown on the page on-call and escalation; for winter services and caretaking emergencies see 24/7 fault intake. For security services, the terms dispatcher and control room / NSL complete the picture.