Before the punch
Parking, queues, changing, booting, briefings — the longest unpaid stretch in the day.
The Walk
On a large site the distance from the gate to the terminal is a pay decision made by whoever drew the site plan, usually before anybody thought about clocks.
The Queue
Two hundred people arriving in a ten-minute window through one door is a queueing problem with a known answer, and it is being treated as a punctuality problem.
Changing
Putting on required equipment is the most litigated item on the unpaid edge, and the question turns on who requires it and whether it has to happen on site.
The Machine That Takes Four Minutes
In an office or a contact centre the unpaid edge is a login sequence: measurable to the second, entirely the employer's doing, and never counted.
The Five Minutes Before the Shift
A short briefing before the hour is the most clearly required and most reliably unpaid activity on the edge, and it is usually nobody's decision at all.
Collecting the Kit
Radios, keys, scanners, vehicles and paperwork have to be drawn before work can start. The store has one window and the shift has eighty people.
Arriving Early
Some of the unpaid edge is the worker's own choice, and distinguishing it from the required part is what makes the required part defensible.
When the First Job Is the Commute
Mobile workers have no gate to walk through. Their edge is the journey to the first appointment, and where the paid day starts is far from settled.