zlacker

Those are some really bad core hours - what gives? Having to mandatory work until 18 (in Germany) or 19 (Romania) sounds like a nightmare in terms of work life balance/family life.

>>kiolea+(OP)
Fair point - perhaps we differ in our definition of "core hours". For us, core hours are a reserved period for our global team where people should be available for meetings and any important team discussions. This isn't a commitment to being at your desk and working those hours every day. We have many team members across Central and Eastern Europe who we trust to balance their work and life in a way that works for everyone.

>>ewmy+py
I'm with kioleanu on this.

Before covid and being in office - "core hours" meant you needed to physically be in office during those hours on almost all days - basically all work days except occasional doctor/dentist/signing-contract-to-buy-house/sick type of situations. And had flexibility to come in earlier or stay later.

In your case it seems to be the same definition of core hours.

Or this "trust to balance their work and life" means it would really be OK for someone to say something like "I'm regularly pick up kids from school/daycare during those last 2 core hours"?

>>ewmy+py
Oh no, we have the exact same definition and honestly I find it obscene that the UK office, assuming you, gets to end the day at a decent 5PM while colleagues towards the east have to completely sacrifice 5 evenings a week.

I don’t even want to go into that last sentence.

If you are true about caring about people’s work life balance (which doesn’t seem to be the case), there is only one option: core hours in the middle of the work day. This way you accommodate both people who are early risers and the ones that start up later in the day.