Locked hours

How it works

701am’s first-call move: lock hours before anyone meets. Clock A or Clock B. Changing them later is a new deal, maybe a new NSD line, maybe a new candidate pool. Core overlap is the thin shared band inside locked hours, not a license to expand. For a U.S. company hiring one Filipino teammate, write this into the brief, the employment contract, and the peso payroll file before the start date. Slack habits do not override the Labor Code, BIR, or NPC. If the local employer of record holds the paper, they run the statutory step; you still owe a clean operating definition so the seat does not fail in week three. Put a number on the example when you budget loaded cost, because a nameless allowance always returns as a December surprise or a missed SLA.

Example: locked 8 a.m.-5 p.m. PHT. A new 6 p.m. Pacific standup is 9 a.m. the next day in Manila or 9 p.m. the same day - one of those breaks the lock.

How it differs

Flexible work arrangement is how you change the lock lawfully. Graveyard is one locked pattern. Time zone split is the map.

Common errors

‘Be flexible’ as the hours clause.

In practice

Treat Locked hours as a week-one operating object. Write the hours and the next Philippine holiday on the same page as the job brief. If this word would change pay or coverage that week, lock it before the interview. Write an owner - founder, local employer, or worker - and a date you will look at it again: first cutoff, first holiday, or first miss. If nobody can show a contract clause, a payslip line, a calendar block, or a checklist box, you do not have locked hours yet. You have a conversation. Convert the conversation before the person starts, while changing the deal still costs a paragraph rather than a resignation. Re-read the worked example above against the actual hire in front of you. If the numbers in that example cannot be swapped for this seat’s pesos, hours, and start date, the brief is still unfinished.