Get to work early if want a good raise!

Have you received a less favourable appraisal from your boss this year? You are likely coming to office late.

A study has found bosses to be favouring employees who, even though on flexible timings, arrived early.

Researchers decided to see if workers were, as it has been claimed, being penalised for working flexi-hours.

"Perhaps, we hypothesised, it matters in which direction an employee shifts hours," said lead researchers Christopher Barnes from University of Washington.

Although flexi-time has been introduced in several firms but the question was if the bosses practically favoured this approach.

Google allows many employees to set their own hours, while at Microsoft, many employees can choose when to start their day between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.

The team found that people do make a greater natural implicit association between morning and conscientiousness.

"The field study we conducted tested the hypothesis that supervisor ratings of conscientiousness and performance would be associated with the timing of an employee's work day," Barnes was quoted as saying in media reports.

Across 149 employee-supervisor relationships, employees who started work earlier in the day were rated by their supervisors as more conscientious, and thus received higher performance ratings.

"Team leaders must come to accept that the people who use flexi-time to start their day late are not necessarily lazier than their early-bird colleagues," the researchers noted.