When we hear the word “theft” in the workplace, we generally imagine stolen office supplies or missing equipment. But another type of theft is sneaking into many businesses under the radar, employee time theft.
It doesn’t get headlines, but it’s costing companies billions every year. In this blog here, we’ll define what employee time theft is, why it’s increasing, and how you can protect your business from it.
What is Employee Time Theft?
Employee time theft happens when an employee is paid for hours that they didn’t work. It doesn’t seem like much at first, maybe someone takes a longer lunch, or they show up early but start late. But the little things, accumulated over time, equal lost productivity and wasted dollars. Time theft can be intentional or unintentional, but the result is the same as you’re paying for time not worked.
Causes Behind Employees Committing Time Theft
Lack of Accountability
When there is no process for monitoring or accountability established, employees will believe that they can get away with little time theft. Without checks, they may begin to believe that nobody is keeping an eye on them or even noticing how they are spending their time, and therefore begin taking liberties with their time.
Disengagement and Low Morale
Disengaged workers, either due to feeling undervalued, under-challenged, or disconnected from business goals, may resort to time theft as a way of coping. They may feel that their time is not being used optimally and that the extra minutes they “steal” will not impact the business.
Poor Time Management Skills
Some workers may not have the skills to manage work properly. This would cause them to spend more time during breaks, working slowly on their work, or spending too much time on non-work activities. The majority of instances of time theft stem from a lack of prioritization and planning of their day.
Loopholes in Time Tracking
If a company has outdated or old-fashioned time-monitoring techniques, employees can quite easily exploit loopholes. Paper timesheets, for instance, or simple clocking equipment are not always tracking minute-by-minute work activities and provide workers some room to note hours that weren’t put in, especially when managers are not present to monitor.
What Are the Motives Behind Employees Committing Time Theft?
Lack of Supervision:
In an environment where supervisors or managers do not directly monitor employees’ work, employees may exercise their independence recklessly. That is particularly rampant in work settings where they don’t have very much oversight at all. Those who feel like they won’t get caught might believe that a few minutes skimmed here and there isn’t a big deal.
Entitlement:
Some employees will believe they’re worth more than they’re being compensated for, either due to experience, the worth that they feel they’re bringing to the organization, or personal satisfaction. They can justify time theft as a method of “compensation” for perceived unpaid labor or lack of appreciation.
Peer Influence:
If workers see their colleagues stealing time without consequences, they might start doing the same. This peer pressure can create a culture of accepting time theft, and new workers may think it’s okay if they see others not getting penalized for it.
Stress or Burnout:
Overworked or burned-out workers may just steal time as a way to reassert control over their workday. They may take additional breaks or mentally tune out from the work they are performing to manage their level of stress. Without proper support and communication on the part of the management, such workers will ultimately create a habit of stealing time.
The Increasing Role of Employee Time Theft
As more people work remotely and in hybrid arrangements, time theft by employees is more difficult to detect. Home-based employees are not always within sight of their supervisors, so it is simpler to steal time without being caught.
Virtual workspaces or mobile devices also provide more chances for employees to clock in without actually working. But although the danger is on the rise, companies are also capable of profiting from these technologies by using savvy time tracking applications that reduce the risk of employee theft.
Common Types of Employee Time Theft
Time theft can occur in many ways. Recognizing the most common types helps managers identify and prevent them.
Catching Up Late But Logging On Time
This is when an employee clocks in at the start of his or her shift and then doesn’t do any actual work for several minutes. Although they may have arrived at work promptly, those few minutes spent becoming ready to work or becoming settled and organized are minutes they don’t receive pay for when they aren’t working.
Taking Unauthorized Long Lunches
The workers can take longer-than-allowed lunch breaks without reporting to the boss or asking permission. Even by just a few minutes at a time, it amounts to hours of missed work when done regularly at employers’ expense, who have no idea about it.
Surfing Social Media or Partaking in Personal Activities
Workers of today’s connected world tend to be distracted by telephones or computers at work. Whether they’re accessing websites like Facebook, taking care of personal matters, or engaging in personal dialogue, this is done on company time, yet the employee is falling short of his or her employer’s requirement.
Slacking Off During Remote Working Hours
As increasing numbers of workers telecommute or report to remote job locations, time theft becomes harder to detect. An employee can be at home and logged onto the employer system resources and still be spending considerable time away from his or her workspace or spending time doing nothing related to his or her job.
Tracking Work Hours Which Are Neither Work Performed
They will round out their hours or pad their time sheets by submitting hours that they never worked. The best example of this is when they report they worked 8 hours when they have done only 6. This is an obvious case of time theft as they’re earning pay for hours that they hadn’t worked.
In essence, employee time theft takes place every time an employee gets compensated for time not worked, and it can harm businesses financially in the long term.
The True Cost and Consequences of Time Theft
Small amounts of time theft can quickly add up to high costs for businesses. Even if the time theft appears to be minor, losses of time may easily accumulate to great expenses to the companies. Although the time theft may seem to be a minor issue, its outcomes may be severe.
Time theft by employees has the most significant consequences that include:
- Loss of finance because of paying hours of not working: Organizations lose money because of paying hours that their employees do not work by their employees, and such amounts may be in thousands per employee per year.
- Waste of employee productivity: Time theft impacts the overall productivity of the employees and slows the completion of projects.
- Legal and moral consequences: Time misrepresentation may cause legal conflict, compensation lawsuits or suspensions.
- Employee demotivation: Honest employees are demotivated when they find out that other employees are taking advantage of the system.
- Negative impact on customer service and reputation: Time theft may lead to delays and errors, which may negatively impact customer satisfaction and the reputation of the organization.
- Strict monitoring and surveillance are required: Organizations might fall into heavy monitoring and surveillance, which may cause mistrust and a reduction in employee satisfaction.
In order to know more about the various types, causes, and consequences of time fraud, visit our all-inclusive Time Fraud Guide.
How Remote Work Has Increased the Risk of Employee Time Theft
Remote and hybrid work have ushered in amazing flexibility, but it has also made employee time theft easier to perpetrate and more difficult to detect. When employees are working from home, they enjoy greater autonomy, a double-edged sword. If you don’t have the right tools in place, employees can log on, check “active,” and then tune out for hours.
This isn’t always done out of spite, either. It is usually merely a lack of organization, blurring of professional and personal life, or burnout. Either way, the result is the same: businesses are paying for time that wasn’t productive.
How to Prevent Employee Time Theft
Utilize Intelligent Time Tracking Tools:
With time tracking tools like Tivazo, employers can monitor workers’ productivity in an unobtrusive and automated way. Such software tools not only keep records of working hours but also provide indications of the activity of workers as well, making it possible to easily identify mismatches between reported and actual hours of work. Screenshot and activity tracking capabilities create an additional level of oversight.
Set Clear Expectations:
Work policies and expectations should be communicated to set boundaries and avoid confusion. The workers will be less apt to deviate from the system when they know what you expect of them, foreg: breaks, clock-in/clock-out routines, and task priorities. Clearing expectations fosters a trust culture since workers feel well informed and accountable.
Develop a culture of ownership:
By recognizing and recompensing workers who show responsibility regularly, businesses can gain ownership of their work. The employees will be less likely to steal time as well since they will be feeling valued and appreciated and will know that hard work and effort will be recognized and compensated. This will make it possible to achieve a good workplace environment where time theft can be minimized.
Provide flexibility wherever you can:
Staff may steal time due to feeling constrained by strict scheduling. Offering flexibility, flexible hours, e.g., or the ability to take more, albeit less frequent, breaks, can make staff feel trusted and included. Such flexibility comes to mean higher staff satisfaction, and thereby less inclination to steal time.
Why Tivazo Is The Smart Choice?
Tivazo automates to make time tracking smarter, friendlier, and more human. Its smart features, like :
- Automatic time logs
- Activity reports, and
- Privacy-friendly screenshots,
This allows teams to operate with integrity and gives leadership the statistics to spot and deter time theft. Tivazo integrates seamlessly with any workflow, remote, in-house, or hybrid, and how easy it is to use means it gets adopted sooner, and excuses just aren’t needed.
Conclusion
Though employee time theft might appear to be a silent drain on your business operations, finding and resolving it provides more than merely damage control; it’s an opportunity to reinforce your company culture, establish trust, and enhance general productivity.
The answer lies in prevention, not punishment. By putting the right tools in place and having an open workplace, businesses not only eradicate time theft but also provide employees with ownership of their time.
