The American Society of Employers was recently quoted as saying that the actual cost of time theft at work may be as high as 20% of every dollar earned in the United States. It’s time to respond to this, and fast.
The following advice will help you understand how to find and stop these issues by determining who is clicking in and out without working, and how to respond to them as fast as possible. Discover how to adjust your policies and incentives to encourage people not to start this practice and empower your managers with the necessary tools to enforce them.
Give your workers everything they need to respect the time sheet, reducing lost work hours and preventing them from taking something away from honest employees.
Accurately Detect Time Theft at Work
Sadly, time theft is not a rare occurrence. SMB Guide even described it as something that around half of all employees have done by padding timesheets. Your workplace may even be currently suffering from the practice if you do not have robust systems to stop it.
Geofenced Mobile Apps
Systems like the TimeTrak mobile app offer an integrated GPS for check-in and check-out, so on-site staff must be within a custom geofence to clock in. Using this prevents them from doing so from further away from work and tricking the system into believing they have begun work. Attempting to alter one’s work status outside the area will trigger alerts that supervisors can follow up with, allowing them to approve the report if, for example, a worker’s device’s GPS is not working correctly.
Push notifications to such apps can then remind team members of when they have missed a clock-in opportunity or to clock out if they leave the geofence without doing so. These features help you to:
- Maintain compliance with regulations
- Ensure much better records
- Reduce difficulties with bottlenecks at clock-in points
- Convert all work status changes quickly to data
- Receive instant reports of worker habits
Biometric Facial Recognition
According to online skills trainer Equip, buddy punching, the act of clocking in for another individual, costs many employers over 2% of their payroll. For this reason, software providers like TimeTrak can provide clock-in points on tablets or kiosks that demand facial recognition before people can record their attendance. The technology helps prevent fraud alongside:
- RFID badge reading
- Meticulous audit logs of failed scans or badge use
- Flagging of employees likely to be attempting to cheat the system
- Secure dashboards for managerial review of records
If necessary, such systems can also integrate with payroll to ensure that only verified entries will lead to payouts, removing the possibility of paying for work not done.
The system can also offer visibility of absence gaps, revealing patterns in attendance that may require a response, such as:
- Habitual Friday early clock-out
- Consistently late arrivals
- Group dynamics that may be leading to attendance issues
- Team tardiness following national events or holidays
You can then respond to these with either reminders of company policy, further training, or disciplinary action as necessary.
Automated Alerts for Immediate Response
If employees miss a scheduled time for clocking in or out, a supervisor may want to know about it. If the location in which you work is particularly busy or wide-reaching, you can then notify supervisors when the employee arrives after being late in this way.
They can immediately respond and discuss the issue with the employee, discovering if they need:
- Further training
- Advice on time management strategies
- Help and support
- Information on transport options
- Correction of any misunderstandings
Modern systems have robust employee monitoring tools. TimeTrak, for example, can check for workstation inactivity exceeding predetermined thresholds, notifying supervisors immediately if workers take action outside their booked activity. Automated reminders, after meetings, for example, can also inform these same employees of their habits so that they can use that information to improve their workflow.
Automation of Complex Attendance Policy
Even if you have a complicated attendance policy, systems like TimeTrak should be able to handle it, or take a lot of the most complex tracking off your hands, leaving only assessment to you. It can flag issues such as:
- Excessive overtime
- Taking breaks outside of set times
- Consistent lateness
- Irregular staffing trends
- Geofence location breaches
Your team can then respond to them in a timely and professional manner.
Reward Adherence to Policy
Instead of, or as well as, responding to tardiness and early departures with disciplinary action or warnings, you could instead reward those who adhere to your attendance rules to encourage people to take extra steps to be on time. Automating these allows you to gamify the process further, encouraging things like:
- Competition
- Performance streaks
- Gift cards
- Extra vacation days
- Team outings
- Meal deliveries
- Sharing of achievements
Doing this builds a robust internal culture of punctuality and exceptional work. However, you may need to combine it with a well-considered sickness policy to ensure people call out when ill instead of worrying that they will lose ground toward a reward, leading to them attending work and potentially infecting the rest of your office.
After implementing these, ensure that you seek out feedback from your employees. Adjust point thresholds based on habits you want to track, discourage, or encourage, and continually reward those who clock in and out on time.
Support Managers with Clear Regulations
Ensure you define precisely what time theft is and the steps you take to deal with violations. If possible, use real-world examples or FAQs to circumvent edge cases that people may use to try to skirt responsibility and help staff share a common understanding of both the spirit and the letter of the rules. You can then empower your team to police one another and help other team members meet your requirements, building further camaraderie in the workplace.
Ensure Accurate Time Tracking
Using biometric, GPS, and rules-based systems, you can lock down time theft at work and empower managers to deal with the remaining exceptions. Violations will essentially be a thing of the past when you incentivise following your system and tie rewards to both workplace productivity and punctuality.
Get your free trial with TimeTrak and learn how we can help with preventing employee time theft. Discover a wide range of features to help you understand how to continually improve your staff’s time discipline.
