When I worked in Austria and Germany, most employees started between 6:00 and 8:00 AM at the latest. Although there was nothing against coming in after 9:00 AM due to flex-time, it would guarantee you'd miss all the morning coffee chit-chat with internal company gossip and by the time you'd leave work and head to the city, the shops would already be close to closing.
In my anecdotal experience, arriving at work around 7 or earlier and leaving before 16:00 is absolutely not a problem. Arriving around 10 is also possible for those who prefer starting late.
People try to group the important meetings in the middle of the day to accommodate everyone. Working overtime when needed happens but those hours can be grouped to take a few days off.
I don't know if it is generalized but it's the case in the two companies I worked for in Germany.
There's no company policy mandating me to start that early yet I start between 7am and 7:30am, by 8am the office is mostly full.
The earlier you start the more daylight left to enjoy at the end of the day. 9am really sounds awfully late. People who start at 9 don't enjoy their morning any more than I do. They just wake up later. And it forces them to stay longer in the evening while I'm out taking advantage of the extra day light to do outdoor activities.
Plenty of places start at 8. I've worked at a couple. Sometimes got in trouble for being late too, since I struggle to get moving in the morning. I seem to work best when I get to start at 9:30 or 10am.
However, in practice it meant I could come in sometime between 10am and 1pm and then work late into the night. It did not mean I could start at 6am and then leave at 2pm. Anyone leaving before 6pm would get suspicious looks, no matter when they came in. Thus, it made no sense to ever show up before 10. It would be interesting to learn when the 7am workers mentioned in the article leave.
I'm working for a small(er) (30ish people) software company and 9am is the general start of the work day, but it's not regulated or enforced. Some people start at 8am, but I for myself start mostly around 10am, except there are some meetings before.
Well, looking at it another way, there's probably a distribution of times of day when people start working, including as late as 10:00 or 11:00 am. So, assuming that this anecdotal experience is representative (and it might well not be), it is surprising that no-one is in the office at 7:30 or 8:00 pm. Either the entrainment effect of the culture is so strong that everyone comes in at 8:00 in the morning, or folks are coming in late and leaving early.
Interestingly, I have found this varies by region.
The major employer in my area (that I work at) has 15,000 people. The unions (factory workers and draftsmen) have to show up between 6am and 7am depending on their specific project (everyone has an exact time, and can actually be 'late').
Engineers can show up anytime they want and leave whenever they want, but typically 9-3 is encouraged as 'core hours' so there is overlap, but other than that we can set our schedules. Thus, I come in at 9am on most days. Most engineers come in more like 7:30-8am.
Because the main employer sets the tone, a lot of other companies in the area run an earlier pace. My girlfriend works at a completely unrelated company and started work before 8am. Most of the schools start very early (because the parents are probably out of the house really early). All the union guys are leaving work at 2:30 or 4 in the afternoon, so restaurents open early and close early.
Coming from an NYC office where 10am-6pm was the norm, 6:00am-2:30pm seems strange. But it does have some advantages.
First off, did you know the sun comes up EARLY. Holy crap was I missing a lot of daylight on the 10-6 schedule. I was up at 5:30 this morning and it was basically broad daylight out there. I went surfing before and after work yesterday while also putting in 9 hours at the office. That only happens if you wake up at 5 in the morning.
I personally like to maximize my outdoors-in-the-sun time so getting up at 530 in the summer and 6-630 in the winter has been a revelation. Yes, you have to go to bed earlier. But my girlfriend and I ditched the habit of watching TV before bed we both had from college (and don't have a TV in the bedroom) and that helps a lot. It also helps to go to the gym right after work.
One company I interviewed for starts day at 11AM, you are expected to be in the office until 7PM, sometime 9PM. I think they do it for timezone difference, heat and easier commute.
I've never worked (as a software engineer) at a company that expects their employees to show up at 9am. Now, at the place I where I work currently, most people _do_ tend to show up between 8-9am and leave by 5-5:30, so working at 6pm I often find myself among a single-digit number of people still at the office, but I think such schedules are usually driven by people's life obligations (having kids, mostly) and personal preferences (naturally early risers) rather than company requirements. I myself routinely wake up around 9am, and come in the office between 10:30-11:15am. I've been here for 5+ years, gotten a substantial raise each year since I've started, and recently gotten promoted. In talking with my manager, my working hours have never ever been brought up as a negative (in fact, my current boss tends to get in around 10:30am himself, mostly to avoid rush hour traffic).
It depends on the individual office. 10am to 4pm is rare. I would say the average is 9:30am til 5:30 - 6pm.
If the office is mostly middle aged people with families or it's a bigger company you see more early starts early finishes 9am - 5:30pm of for some people with kids 8am - 4:30pm.
In an office of mostly younger people you see the 9:30am til 7pm+ marathons when actual work needs to get done. Because so much time is spent recovering from lunch, recovering from the hangover, waiting for coffee the long hours become necessary.
A 10am start is quite uncommon, everywhere I've worked (5 different places so far) no one would look at you funny as long as you're in _before_ 10am and put in your hours but after 10am is a stretch.
I also personally dislike the alcohol and coffee culture because overall it just makes you tired. It was fun in the beginning but when the real work starts to kick it is exhausting. I quit both for a month and felt a lot better for it.
If you check my shift suggestions though - the 'evening team' start at 11am in my example.
I've run my own businesses for over 30 years now, and in almost all cases, we give our employees a choice over their preferred working hours. Guess what? Some of them are 'early birds' and love coming in really early when they feel productive and like the fact that they can leave early and still catch up with friends for coffee or a late lunch at 2 or 3pm.
Some preferred spending their early mornings getting kids ready for school or going to extended yoga classes, running errands etc. and coming in closer to lunch time and working later, leaving the office after 6 or 7pm to avoid the rush hour traffic.
The solution could work to suit the employees as well as the customers. Time to be creative about this, rather than refusing to budge from an outdated mandate.
The problem I've had with coming in early is that most of the people I work around are procrastinators. So if the business day is 9 to 5, they will push off most of their work to close to 5. If I come in at 7am and expect to leave at 4 it is nearly impossible because that is the busiest time of most peoples days. It is a let down if I leave "early". I end up working 7 to 5 and then can't do my usual nighttime distraction-less work because I need to get up early the next day.
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