10 minutes early at work? The court ruled that your boss must pay for it

The Court of Appeal in The Hague upheld the earlier decision of the Sub-District Court of Appeal.

The scheduling rules for the call center, which works with clients like Microsoft, Google, Mastercard and BMW, require employees to be present ten minutes before they start their work. In this way, they can already log into the various systems and start communicating immediately at the beginning of business hours.

wages in the back

Last year, an employee who had worked at Teleperformance for four years from 2016 claimed those 10 minutes retroactively as “overdue pay.” The amount prompted him to claim around €1,600. When the company refused to pay, the man went to court.

The call center has defended itself by saying that employees are not required to perform work, but only “must be present so that work can start on time”. Since they can also drink coffee or go to the toilet in those 10 minutes, this will not fall under paid working time.

Last year, the Sub-District Court in The Hague really swept the floor with this defence. According to the judge, this was an “assignment from the employer and therefore working time”. The sum of €2,900 consists of late salary, vacation allowance, statutory increase and collection costs. In addition, the company must reimburse approximately 800 euros in legal costs to the employee.

3,600 employees

according to pronunciation The appeal again “was the question of whether the ten minutes before the start of his shift should count as paid working time”. “The court answers this question in the affirmative, just like the sub-district court judge.”

The compensation remains the same as in the previous ruling: “Now that Teleperformance has not filed any complaints against the claim amount issued by the Sub-District Court Judge, the Court assumes that it is valid.”

Referee can have an expensive tail for a call center. The company has 3,600 permanent employees in the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname.