If you start work at 9 am, is it OK to walk through the door at 9 am ?

[mmhhhkkkk]

Or is that a bit ' late ' ?

We have a morning meeting at 9am every day so I have to be there in the meeting room, coat in cupboard, bag in desk drawer, with cup of coffee if I want and note pad and pen at the ready… I have arrived dead on 9am and subtly hid my bag under the table in the meeting room and no one commented but it would be frowned upon if it was regular.

No longer in an office, as all now wfh, but when I did the start time I Iogged on my timesheet was the time I walked in the door. This is usual practice in all offices I've worked in for 30+ years. Tbh when I first worked in an office we didn't have computers to boot up lol!
I think people work better and are more committed if treated like adults and if managers lead by example i.e if you are a call centre manager and expect your staff to be ready to start taking calls at 9am with no paid prepararion/ logging on time then you do the same yourself, i.e you start work the moment your meeting starts and not 20 mins before in the tea room!

As others have said it depends on the job - I had a recent office based job where we had to log in to so many different IT portals that I had to start 30 mins before my official start time (we all did this).
This meant that I worked an extra 2 1/2 hours a week for nothing.

I think from some of these comments that we really buy into the the corporation is better than the individual view. If work requires you to start at 9am then they should also be paying you for any ‘start up’ time. It’s ridiculous to expect individuals to put in unpaid time to boot up etc - they wouldn’t cut it as a real argument during working days (I’m a manager and I’m docking 5-15 mins of time because the individual had computer problems with our own system).

Yes, paying people to grab a coffee before they start is arguably not great (though if they meet their targets does it not just show trust and gain corporation locality?) but to make people start early on unpaid time due system boot ups isn’t really isn’t okay and we should be pulling up on this. We owe corporations set times - we don’t owe them anything on top of that.

If you always walk in bang on time and always walk out bang on time it speaks volumes.

As PPs have said it depends on the job.
If a cleaner comes to your home then they would arrive and start immediately so at 9am but if you are a teacher or something with computers then you need to log on so you need to be there earlier to be ready to start work at 9

Handover time needs to be paid
Preparation time needs to be paid - such switching on and logging onto computer
If need to be at 9am meeting and work starts at 9am - why isn’t it fine to take your bag and coat in with you - if you can stow away.

worksmart.org.uk/work-rights/pay-and-contracts/pay/our-employer-asks-us-turn-15-minutes-work-starts-doesnt-pay-us

Legally, if you have to log onto a number of systems etc before starting work, then your working time starts when you sit and start doing that.

The golden rule is that if you need to do it in order to do your job, you are doing that in work time, not your own.

Having a chat and getting a coffee, no. That's your time.

@JustJustWhy

If you always walk in bang on time and always walk out bang on time it speaks volumes.

Efficient?

@JustJustWhy

If you always walk in bang on time and always walk out bang on time it speaks volumes.

What volume is it speaking, exactly?

@MrsLargeEmbodied

i think people who come in early and act the martyr for doing so are very annoying.

Yes. I have a colleague who starts work at about 6 and then makes pained comments if invited to a meeting or call after about 3pm. Very annoying as it’s hard enough to get time in diaries when everyone is free without considering 3 or earlier the end of the working day for some. They also make comments about how they’ve already been busy for hours if you speak to them at 10 or so.

It is a personal preference to start unusually early (nothing to do with childcare, etc.), strictly speaking work starts at 7 at the earliest and the norm is to be available between 9 and 4/5, so I’m not sure why I should feel sorry for them or impressed by it.

In my last job, we had an 8.30am start. One of my colleagues started coming in around 7.30am and an ‘early-ness’ culture developed and it almost got a bit competitive. I always used to arrive between 8.10-8.15, and suddenly that started to look comparatively late! It was a bit annoying TBH

It doesn't speak volumes to anything.
You are paid for x amount of time. You work between those times. Before and after is your time.
I am an early starter- always at work around 15 minutes before my shift starts, but I am not working as such. I logon, get my coffee, set up for the day. I am ready to go at 9am, though. And I am ready to leave bang on time.

Late. I work in a shop. If I walk in the door, then have to walk through to the back, log on, put my bag etc in a locker and THEN go to find out what I'm supposed to start on that day, I'm already two minutes late and taking the piss out of colleagues who want to log off and go home.

@JustJustWhy

Speaks volumes about what? Being on time?

What on earth are you on about?

I'd say at your desk or on the shop
Floor at 9am. The desk one I'd say timing your computer on is work personally.

@LemonSwan

Depends how much you get paid.

Low pay (less than 25k) - on time
Mid pay (25-50k) - late
High pay (50k+) - early unless its a meeting

Dont ask me the logic. Their is none

Phew, I'm allowed to be late.

Of course, it's like a PP said, for many jobs it doesn't matter if you start at 8.30 or 9.30 as long as you get your tasks done. Neither DH or I have ever had to be in work at a set time and I would only associate clock watching with low paid shift work. But it's swings and roundabouts, I don't expect to finish on the dot of 5pm either, my job is varied and sometimes involves early starts (7am telecons when I had a BFing 1 year old who still woke in the night was interesting) and sometimes answering calls in the middle of the night as well as entire days at my desk writing reports.

@Chloemol

No it’s not big you start work at 9am you are at your desk it whatever 5 minutes before.

How would it work if shops open at 9am and no one is there to serve?

Shop workers contracted hours wouldn't be from 9am though if that was the case, I used to work in a cafe that opened at 9, I was contracted to start work at 8 though to set up

Depends on job and company. I start at 8.30 bug am in any time from 8.15-8.45am
I cycle in so need shower, get some breakfast etc so guess i might not properly start work for another 15-20 mins

But i never take for than 20 mins for lunch and often work will 6.30 despite work ending at 6pm.
So no-one really cares.

I hate handovers with a passion. I used to work nights and we had to be there 15 mins early UNPAID for it. However the AM managers rarely came in until on the dot so we usually had to stay another 15-30 UNPAID. I left very quickly and took my entire team with me. No way is anyone getting 2.5-4 HOURS PER WEEK of my work for free.

It does depend on the job, personally I arrive usually 10 minutes early but that's just because of public transport times, if my work made a big deal out of having to arrive earlier, I would make sure I didn't work a minute past my finish time tbh

I would only associate clock watching with low paid shift work

Shop workers contracted hours wouldn't be from 9am though if that was the case

Do you lot live in a different universe? We have a fingerprint logon system which logs our hours! Just because we work in shops doesn't mean we crawl in our knees beating a drum...

@GreenFingersWouldBeHandy

I would only associate clock watching with low paid shift work

Shop workers contracted hours wouldn't be from 9am though if that was the case

Do you lot live in a different universe? We have a fingerprint logon system which logs our hours! Just because we work in shops doesn't mean we crawl in our knees beating a drum...

Yeah my computer logs my log in time Log into the system at 9am, log out at 5pm 8.59am acceptable, 9.01am late!

@Mamajunebugjones I have had bosses who should have read that!!

Exactly! I'm really surprised why someone is questioning why they should be asked to work before or after their contracted hours. Just don't!