To think this rule with working hours is a little unfair

[Kennedydavenport]

I work in the afternoons, we start work at 1:50 where we receive our handover but are only paid from 2pm. We were reminded in a recent meeting that we must not be arriving any later than 1:45 ish to be ready to receive handover at 1:50 (though it doesn't always start on time).
Yeah it's only 10/15 mins a day but that's almost an hour a week, 47 hours a year if you take out holidays.
I'm paid hourly too at £11 an hour, not salaried. Over £500 a year unpaid.
Am I just being petty?
We also have 30 mins unpaid taken out of our wages but never, ever have I had a full 30 mins break, honestly about 3 times in 4 months.

Many years ago I worked in a supervisory role on shifts. It was mandatory for a supervisor to be present - the outgoing supervisor could not leave until the incoming supervisor turned up. Handover only took about 5 minutes as anything important was written in the log book. The etiquette was that the incomer arrived around 10 minutes early to a welcome cuppa made by the outgoer, and after handover the outgoer could leave a minute or two early and avoid the rush out of the car park! Nobody complained because you would be the incomer one week and the outgoer the next.

If those 10 mins added up over a month knock you below minimum wage, they are not allowed to enforce it

HMRC will investigate it. I reported my last employer because they wanted everyone in 10 mins before we opened to set up and the total of 10 mins added up then take off our wages meant we were below minimum wage so they either had to stop and let us start at 7.30 or pay us for the 10 mins.

@AbreathofFrenchair did you get back pay?

Yes, we all did

@AbreathofFrenchair what a nice outcome! Sorry, I was just being nosy

If your require for work related tasks prior to contract hours and they don’t want to pay you don’t have to be there! I had an office job who once ruled filing was not to be done in work time- so I left my filing until it become a massive bundle as I refused to do it in my time when it was work related

On the very rare occasion I've had the full 30 mins (and that's always been 30 mins broken up, not interrupted) it's because we had extra staff or the home was quiet.
Not worth it for £11 an hour, so I'm leaving asap.

They are breaking the law.

When you are employed to do a job, the employer is buying a piece of your life. If they want you to work for them from 900, they pay you for your time. They don't own you outside of that time, so if they want you to be available from 0845, they need to pay you. Why would you give them a chunk of your lifespan for free?

Yep! Someone phoned in on the LBC legal hour about a similar situation and were advised this exact thing

With re breaks, I build these into our floor plan and they are allocated at the beginning of each shift to make sure everyone gets one and, particularly when I'm not around, it eliminates arguments between staff

Join a union and tackle it head-on. Good luck

It's labour, though. They just need to be there ready to start at 2 pm. It's fairly common. Even in shop work, you're expected to arrive 10 mins beforehand to put your stuff away and prepare yourself to start on the hour. I think it's pretty petty - they do it for a reason so that everyone gets to leave and clock off on time. If it wasn't in place that's when you'd be really fucked!

That should say NOT LABOUR

Putting your personal stuff away and making a coffee isn't work, though - whereas logging into systems and being present for handovers is.

If your system takes ten minutes to connect and you open at 9am, then you either need to pay people to come in and start at 8.50am (and be ready to take calls at 9am) or keep pay as it is, but accept that nobody will be able to take any calls until 9.10am.

The same applies to shop handovers - if someone needs to be on the shop floor ten minutes before the doors open, then they need to be paid for that ten minutes. That's the law.

If it's care work, that isn't putting your things in a locker. Handover is a meeting where you take notes about the patients or residents. Employers like this deserve to lose staff to competitors.

I once had this exact same issue - paid from 06:45 but had to start at 06:20 ish as it took so long to log on to all the things I needed
Also the handover was always at the end of the shift
It all adds up!

You sound like a good manager and I am sure your staff appreciate this ❤️

Very unfair, police do 1/2 hour unpaid Kings Duty a day for briefing.

It's rubbish. I've had a few call centre jobs like that in the past. They expected you to have put all your stuff in your locker and be ready to take your first call bang on start time, so effectively you needed to show up 10-15 mins early. They then expected you to stay logged in until the minute your shift ended, so if you got a call in that last minute you had to work unpaid over time. On a couple of occassions I was there almost an hour after the time I got paid for.

It's just the way I was raised and trained. I was taught to always show up at any job 10-15min early, so I don't find it an unusual expectation.

In terms of lunch, employers legally have to give staff breaks if shifts are a certain number of hours. Granted, they don't have to be paid, I just think, unless it's a zero hours contract, it's cheap not to, given staff have to be their for the full length of their shift and can't say they'll work through lunch and leave an hour earlier.

when I worked in dentistry the first patient was generally at 9am so nurses were paid from 8.45 as they needed to set up surgeries etc, however 8.45 was when they started work they were expected to be in uniform at that point not civvies if they wanted a coffee while setting up that is fine but boil the kettle before 8.45, the same at the end of day paid 15 minutes after finish time, if we ran late either into lunch time or after work they would get time back so if another day the last patient cancellled they would get to go home early or get a long lunch, generally if we ran a lot late ( you can't walk out to go collect your child from childcare ) I would give a lift to child care or pay the late penalty for them, with experience this happens very rarely. I was adamant enough space was left for emergencies not cramming patients into lunch break etc, I never expected anyone to work unpaid overtime, this was NHS practice but it is morally wrong to exploit people paid less well than yourself by expecting them to work for nothing for fear of being destitute. Sports direct boss was worried about staff stealing goods so there were security checks so he stole from them by expecting them to do this unpaid, more workplace theft is management stealing from employees in terms of unpaid labour not taking all holidays and lunch hours than in employees stealing from employer

I think there's an important distinction between being ready to work which might mean you get there 10 minutes early to reach your floor, hang your coat up, get a drink etc and being required to work like the OP was.
At my work we've been told that asking our teams to work before their official start time is a disciplinary offence, even if they're sat at their desk ready and willing to start!

I am a manager of a large discount retail store. I am made work 45 hours per week(sometimes more)and im only paid for 40. If im off a day sick they will dock my wages nevermind i work 5 hours free each week. Same employer posts publicly how they've gave all their staff a 10% payrise not saying they've cut payroll so the staff get less hours!!