Hello all,
Most offices are practicing 9-6 / 9.30-6.30 / 10-7 working hours. At the same time many companies give a grace period of 15-30 minutes. Many other companies do not give grace period and deduct the amount by the minutes that they have walked in late.
However, as HR, one needs to realise that coming to office on time each day may not be possible. There are traffic issues, public transport issues, that one has to go through to come to office. Many situations are beyond the control of the employee. And it will always be a better practice to consider those situations.
My office has a practice of giving a grace period of 30 minutes, with the condition of completing 9 hours of work. Which means, if I walk in late by say 10 minutes of actual time, I have to leave late by 10 minutes of the out-time. This way, their pay for 9 hours is justified. We are allowed 3 late marks in a month, after which a half day salary deduction is practiced for each late mark. (We are marked late if we walk in beyond the allowed grace time).
In many software industry, I have noticed that they have a fixed in-time but no fixed out time. Late sitting is very common in such industry as they have to complete and submit the project on time. If this is the practice than not allowing grace time is just being unfair to the efforts that the employees give by sitting beyond the working hours to complete their job.
Though we cannot force a company to initiate the grace period as it do not fall into standing orders or compulsary acts that a firm needs to follow; but definitely it is a good practice to follow.
Senior's advice awaited.