This chapter will focus on ways of organising workplace life, particularly working time.

The word attendance describes how often an employee is present at work. When an employee is not present we say that he or she is absent. Absenteeism is when an employee regularly does not arrive for work in the morning. Companies often keep an attendance record of an employee's presence at work. The process of registering attendance is called clocking on/in (i.e. inserting a card into a machine which records the arrival time) and clocking off/out.

The number of weekly hours specified in an employee's contract is called The number of hours an employee actually works is known as