NOTE: preparation time is labor time!🕰️

The Supreme Court recently issued an interesting ruling on compensation for work time. This case revolved around an employee at a call center who was required to be present 10 minutes prior to his shift. During those 10 minutes, the employee was expected to perform preparatory work, such as logging into the systems, reporting to the supervisor, so that when his shift started, the employee could start work immediately. The question the Supreme Court had to address is whether those 10 minutes of preparation time should be considered paid work time?

The Supreme Court ruled that, under certain conditions, these 10 minutes should also be considered working time and therefore paid. 

Specifically, what does this mean?

When an employee is required to perform preparatory work prior to work, this time can be considered working time and an employee is entitled to pay for that time. However, the employee must prove that this is expected of him and that it is actual work. Thus, this preparatory work may include logging into systems. An important consideration is that an employee is not free to fill in this time himself, so it is considered working time. 

Note that if you as an employer require your employee to be present at work earlier, then under circumstances this can be considered working time. 

If you have any questions about this, please contact Dennis Oud, Tessa Sipkema, Elke Hofman-Bijvank or Tim Riel.