A future employee wrote to a Japanese personal finance site before starting work in April. The company had told the writer about a rule: new employees come to work early in the morning and clean.
The site answered with the definition of working time from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Working time is any time under the employer’s direction, whether the direction is stated or implied. Early cleaning that the company directs, even tacitly, counts as working time and must be paid, even if no rule is written down.