This is in California. My workplace uses a third party website to manage our hours. To clock in, we must first load up the site. Anyone who has ever used a computer knows that boot up isn’t instantaneous. It takes maybe a few minutes to get everything loaded so we can clock in. Recently, our new boss made it a rule that everyone must come in before the start of their shift to prepare everything so they can get started right on the dot. One of my coworkers expressed she has no intention of doing anything work related prior to the start of her shift and continued to start up her systems at the beginning of her scheduled start time rather than before it. Because of this she was given a final warning about following the new rule or be terminated.
I am unfamiliar if this is a permissible policy but I figured I would ask here to get some guidance.