In the USA, at least, they aren't required to provide a time/place, but they would be required to compensate you for it, by the Fair Labor Standards Act [1]. I

In the USA, at least, they aren't required to provide a time/place, but they would be required to compensate you for it, by the Fair Labor Standards Act [1]. It sounds exactly like "Lectures, Meetings and Training Programs", which means it qualifies as "working time". It's on the clock. [1]: https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs22.pdf https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs22.pdf Schedule a workday to spend reading the book, or bill the company for taking up half your weekend. If this worker is in a union, this is precisely the sort of issue to take up with the steward. Most programmers aren't, but apparently non-union workers already have an "an open and direct dialogue" with their managers, though it's kind of hard to tell if that's the case here since the manager is the one who can't seem to schedule one simple task for the employee.