Ms. Li joined a technology company in April 2019 and was dismissed in December 2020. She claimed pay for more than 500 hours of overtime. Her evidence included chat records, screenshots from the DingTalk app and a duty roster for the company’s social media accounts on weekends and holidays. The court of first instance rejected her claim.
On appeal, the Beijing No. 3 Intermediate People’s Court ordered the company to pay her 30,000 yuan. According to the reports, the court held that the idea of a workplace should be weakened. What counts is whether the employee provided substantive work. The Beijing News called it the first case in China to address yinxing jiaban, hidden overtime, in a judgment.
In 2024, the Supreme People’s Court wrote the test for hidden overtime online into its annual work report: “substantive work” and “obvious use of time.”