Help please disciplinary re clocking in times

surreysaver

If you're there before your start time, then you're trespassing.

Incisor

surreysaver wrote: »

If you're there before your start time, then you're trespassing.

Nice one! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

MrsE_2

Soubrette wrote: »

Logging on, adjusting chairs, desks, finding footstools etc are all part of your job imo. It is therefore not reasonable to ask you to come in early to do those necessary parts of your job without pay.

It is equally unreasonable to take 15 minutes to log in or to expect to be paid from the minute you walked in the building.

Sou

Is it?

I fill in my own timesheet on a excel spreadsheet, & I enter my start time as the the I walk in & the finish time as the time I leave.

I enter by a side door & it takes me seconds from the door to my chair.

I just round it up or down to the nearest 5 mins.

If I walked in a 8.16, then I put 8.15. If I walked in a 8.14, I would still put 8.15.

My employer trusts me to be honest enough to clock my own hours & as a result I wouldn't dream of betraying that trust.

My start time varies between 8.15 & 9.05 (depends on how fast I get ready in the morning & traffic). BUT whatever time I start at, I still do my 36 hours.

briona

MollyJoe wrote: »

The majority of our team agree and are at our desks a good 10 to 15 minutes early. However as many of our team are mums on school runs and school doors / traffic dont always go to plan and 8.29am happens.

I think the OP's company is being REALLY petty. Reminds me of a member of staff at a company I worked for in the past who gave employees a major dressing down if we parked slightly on a yellow line in the carpark. She made one member of staff reverse and re-park THREE times before her her parking was deemed acceptable! Seriously!

Unfortunately pettiness begets pettiness – I intentionally parked at an angle every single morning to wind this member of staff up, and it worked! – so in the OP's case I would suggest 'fixing' the clock on the clocking in machine so that when it's actually 8:29am, the clocking in machine would say 8:25am!

Poppy9

You have to be at your desk ready to start work at 8.30am. If they employer provides equipment that needs adjusting or booting up then it is either done in anticipation of you being at your desk at 8.30am or it's done by you at 8.30am so it's in works time.

Use of equipment is part of your job, your job is not to prepare the equipment in advance of your start time. Would they like it if you switched your equipment off and returned chairs to standard settings at 4.58pm in readiness for a 5pm finish?

McKneff

tinkerbell84 wrote: »

Is that where they swipe their cards?? :eek:

(sorry - couldn't resist )

only when they clock in on a mooning:j

CFC

Incisor wrote: »

Note this, they are contracted to start work at 0830. That is the beginning of the fulfillment of the contract. When they clock in is not part of the contract, the company are claiming jurisdiction over people during their own [non contracted] time. So as long as people are started by 0830 and clocked in, that is the end of it. The advice is sound. There are no grounds for the company to complain about anyone not clocking in by 0828. [And beyond this, as clocking in is a procedure demanded by the company, it could be argued to be work anyway]


If you really buy that line of petty management think, then of course the 2 minutes clocking on across 100 employees amounts to 3 hours 20 minutes stolen from the employees over a working day.

Intelligent management will declare the objective of having work started at 0830 but not be so petty as to dictate to employees what time they should clock on. If they presume to hold disciplinaries about what happens before 0830, then they are presuming that the time is contracted time. It isn't.

Incisor, this is not about your opinion of what intelligent or petty management is, it is about what the company can do without falling foul of a tribunal.

Poppy9, I'm afraid you are incorrect.

Unless the OP can prove that it takes less than 2 minutes to go from clocking in station (which should be very close to the office entry point) to actually beginning work, she will not have any sustainable defence to a lateness disciplinary that I can see. I strongly suspect that the OP will agree that it is not possible to log onto her pc and phone in less than 2 minutes; certainly I have never used a pc which would boot and open all applications in less than 2 minutes.

Please be aware that a company may indeed hold disciplinaries for what happens out of work time and off the company premises, in certain situations. Contracted time is not the be-all and end-all.

Incisor

CFC wrote: »

Incisor, this is not about your opinion of what intelligent or petty management is, it is about what the company can do without falling foul of a tribunal.

Poppy9, I'm afraid you are incorrect.

Unless the OP can prove that it takes less than 2 minutes to go from clocking in station (which should be very close to the office entry point) to actually beginning work, she will not have any sustainable defence to a lateness disciplinary that I can see. I strongly suspect that the OP will agree that it is not possible to log onto her pc and phone in less than 2 minutes; certainly I have never used a pc which would boot and open all applications in less than 2 minutes.

Please be aware that a company may indeed hold disciplinaries for what happens out of work time and off the company premises, in certain situations. Contracted time is not the be-all and end-all.

Nor is it about your opinion.

A manager might give employees a hard time about work starting at 0830, but if the duties include clocking on, then work has started. And if the company supports a manager with a disciplinary, they are then in the position of proving that it does take 2 mins to get from the clocking on point to the desk to make the disciplinary stand. Ultimately, this is about a petty manager. The best thing is that it doesn't get to a tribunal, but I would hope that the whole office in this case would make any disciplinary on any individual a very counter productive process. It is too petty to bother with, but equally it is too petty to be allowed to impinge on anyone.

Poppy9

CFC wrote: »

Poppy9, I'm afraid you are incorrect..

Why?

The employer provides equipment that takes loading time yet he expects the employee to come in earlier than their start time, and earlier than he is paying them for, to start up his equipment so they are able to start work bang on 8.30am. Since when did people have to work for free?

I work for LA and I clock in and out. My time is recorded from when I clock in/out (we are on flexi time) so walking time to/from the office is on work's time.

OP what happen's lunch time. We have to clock in and out for lunch too as we don't get paid for our lunch hour.

CFC

Poppy9 wrote: »

Why?

The employer provides equipment that takes loading time yet he expects the employee to come in earlier than their start time, and earlier than he is paying them for, to start up his equipment so they are able to start work bang on 8.30am.

Because the employer is legally able to do this. Unless and until there is an ET case which changes the way that it is employed.

I can see that Incisor and yourself are on the other side of the fence on this matter. It is not a question of whether the employer is being petty, it's not about free work time or moral correctness. It's about what the company can LEGALLY do. Opinions do not come into it, other than as professional opinions. The whole point is that the OP is not disputing that it takes 2 mins to boot a pc up. If for some reason it did not, my undertstanding is she would have posted that fact.


I can only say that companies can and do take people to disciplinaries and issue outcomes on the basis of not having pc booted up at required start time. My own company requires people to swipe in at reception with their card or to sign in if they have forgotten it. One could try to interpret this as 'part of their duties', but that kite won't fly. Indeed we would not discipline on the basis of not signing in on time, we would discipline on 'lateness' and pull pc reports to prove it. However the fact of the matter is that someone signing in at 8.29 (or even 8.25 for our building) will not have their pc booted and applications open at 8.30.

However I shall not be posting on this thread again, merely advising the OP that she considers her position carefully before she decides not to comply with the request.