Managing Working Hours, Compensation, and Employee Attendance in a Software Company

Dear Senior,

I am working in an IT software company in the HR department. In my company, employees normally come late and stay late for work. At the time of salary disbursement, they start arguing regarding half-day deduction and late marks not being deducted because they are sitting late. We consider half-day starting at 11:30 onwards, and the leaving time is 6:30 pm. They usually arrive after 12 to 1 pm and stay late until 7-8 pm. This does not make any sense for not deducting half a day.

To address this issue, we are planning to extend the working hours from 48 to 54 hours per week. However, I am aware that 54 hours may not be legal under labor laws. We are compensating with half-day deductions and late marks. Please advise if this approach is appropriate.

I am awaiting your reply. Thank you.

Dear Mr./Ms. Bawadia,

48 hours is the legal limit per week, extendable by 2 hours per day/12 hours per week for overtime, but I am open to correction on this.

My understanding of your policy is this: If an employee arrives before 11:30 am and remains in the office until 6:30 pm, it is considered a full day, and an individual is expected to work 48 hours a week.

My understanding of your problem is this: Employees arrive at 12 noon / 1 pm and work until 7 / 8 pm, then expect to be compensated for the whole day.

If this is the case, simply removing the flexibility of arriving at 11:30 and setting the time to around 9:15 am should suffice. Other rules can be considered to manage this, but the efficiency and effectiveness of complex rules depend on the number of employees you have and how automated your processes are.

Also, hopefully, your management is not using this as a ploy to make employees work extra. Generally, that is a recipe for disaster. Productivity does not increase, but managers love to showcase their teams spending extra time at work.

Hi,

I think you should conduct regular sessions on work-life balance and the impact if it is not followed. Maybe you could educate them by citing examples of senior and successful managers who have managed this discipline. While I suggest that these sessions have to be continuous as the output expected would not be right the first time.

Regards

Thank you for your response.

We have already conducted the session, and every employee is aware of the policies and procedures. I will now discuss this with management to see what happens.