Most importantly, time theft is not a joke. Nowadays, with an increasingly mobile workforce and easy entrance to the internet, time theft is an even higher issue for employers today. So big that it costs lakhs in the lost productivity yearly. Well, at present, employee theft is an unfortunate reality.
And the company pays the full amount for the time they weren’t scheduled or didn’t work and can come in various forms. Time theft isn’t just combining extra hours to the timesheets. There are many ways that workers and constructors steal extra money from businesses.
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Well, if the employees who carefully track time mark others. They can be less motivated and productive. Why should I work hard when others get away with several hours? They may think to themselves. When time theft runs for a long time, it may lead to low productivity and affect your company’s other employees.
What Is Time Theft?
Time theft symbolizes that an employee or businessperson maintains the policy to pay for hours they haven’t worked. In other words, we can say that time theft is when an employee is receiving a salary for the time, and they didn’t work. So it is estimated as time cheating or stealing time.
When employees steal time, this thing hurts productivity so much that underperformance becomes your new normal.
And not even your productivity gets harmed by the cost of paying for work with zero results; a team member who steals creates a high ripple effect in your company.
Productivity indeed suffers over your entire team. But, trust us, it’s very demotivating for a hardworking employee to see someone else make an equal amount of money for not doing work correctly and getting a worse result.
Frequently employees who charge their time certainly suffer performance problems in organizations where time theft is a problem. And may not even realize that this will affect your overall team productivity. And, if low performance can become your new regular habit, it will also harm the company.
Working in this environment negatively affects other employees and is more likely to adopt the same practice. For example, if your workers catch more and more breaks, show up late, depart early, and use your work time for individual tasks. Then, your team member also does the same, and it will affect productivity.
But despite how the time theft occurred and the shortage of both time and money can damage how your business works.
Cost of Time Theft for Business
Now, all we know is what it is; just how much could employees time theft cost your business? Time theft is so expensive because employees’ time is one of the most valuable assets to your company. And, it can’t be replaced once it’s gone.
To understand the employee’s time theft costs, make some strict rules or use the time tracking software or time management software.
Moreover, 74% of employers feel payroll losses related to buddy punching. Well, according to analysis, these ends average 2.2% of gross payment, and that’s just one form of time theft.
Why and How Does Time Theft Occur?
First, get to know the answer to why are employees doing time theft? Because they feel that the company does not appreciate their work, and they get demotivated. Sometimes they feel pressure.
Ask your 20 employees why they are engaged in time theft, and you will get 20 different answers. But you will get one common answer which is that they feel their work is not valued.
The hard fact is that time theft is happening just because it can. But, the motive is another thing.
Moreover, when your team feels that they are not being treated unjustly and do time theft and feel they did the right thing.
Ghosting
Ghosting is also known as buddy punching if one employee clocks in for another employee who is not at work. And in the office, sometimes employees run late and don’t want to mark their latecomer, so they ask another employee to mark attendance on their behalf. This leads to a high loss in productivity for those employees and the business as a whole.
Long Breaks
One of the most basic time theft modes is taking a longer break than normal. For example, if the break time is 15 minutes, other employee B might leave 10 minutes quickly and get back to work 10 minutes late. This extra 20 minute is absolutely a waste of work and productivity the employer is paying for.
Unauthorized Personal Time
Time theft occurs even when the employees are at their work, clocked in, and doing what they are supposed to be doing. And theft happens when they attend personal calls during office timing, chat with friends, or scroll Instagram doing activities apart from work.
And some employees also allow these changes up to a point, but when the productivity gets harmed, and work is not complete on time, it will turn the loss in business, and it may be considered time theft.
Timesheet Fraud
Timesheets that every employee fills by hand are remarkably sensitive to time theft.
Doing proper 8 hours work but coming a few moments late and leaving early is one of the popular types of timesheet fraud.
If you are not working correctly, one or two minutes is also lost productivity, affecting employee performance. So it is essential to give the business a bottom line when multiplied by five, ten, or even 100 employees.
Companies can also take the help of time management software to track the performance of employees and check the deadline of their work daily.
Excessive Socializing
Well, it’s completely fine with employees. Socializing, working together, and making bonds with each other are not bad.
But sometimes, extreme socializing leads to high wasted work hours, huge productivity loss, and conflict with other team members.
Task-Specific Time Theft
Sometimes some tasks make it more straightforward to get away with the time theft, and many employees are more prone to the practice. And it’s not always going on in these jobs, that can be more complicated for the company to know the way to others.
Non-Work-Related Internet Use
One kind of time theft is the most challenging to monitor and prevent because no internet use works. And this may lead to range from employees surfing their popular websites to wasting time on social media or online shopping.
But, unfortunately, unless you have professionals I.T experts who can control the internet activity, you can also use time tracking software.
Solution For Time Theft: Time Management Software
When employees do time theft, the company suffers a lot, and employees’ low productivity affects the business work. And the most common reason why employees commit time theft is that they feel their company is trying to take advantage of them. Employees thought they are not paid well for their work or the company does not value their work.
Change your outlook rather than addressing these checks to look for workers who are not doing well. And this would be best for you to study for the obstacles to help you solve them more comfortable for your team to get their work done.
Time management software and time tracking software like EmpMonitor helps you to get the working report of your employees. And after this, you can easily manage your time and productivity check.
There are so many benefits you get if you use time tracking software and time management software. Let’s discuss some amazing benefits if companies use this software.
Measure productivity & Improve efficiency.
Firstly, you can uncover hidden productivity killers if you use time tracking software or time management software. It also gives you a clear understanding of singular processes through increasing efficiency and increasing productivity.
Data-Centric. Laser Centred
If you use this amazing software, you can get help in identifying sensitive information with absolute accuracy. It will also diminish your organization’s vulnerability to risk, identify threats in time to withdraw data gaps, and easily manage assent.
Consistency In Appearance. Confidence In Effects.
Using the software, you can easily recognize and organize your delicate, classified, or mission-critical knowledge perfectly. This includes data, whether it’s on-premises or in your drives.
Prevent Breaches. Reduce Risk.
When your employees know about the time tracking software, then they work more carefully. And, it is also very important to put your company stuff. It will reduce the investigation of the delicate content by executing risk-appropriate protection controls. It is also best to detect abnormal activity before and give quick signs before a threat turns into a gap.
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Present Evidence. Complete Compliance.
Well, you will get the complete details and access to the effectiveness of the security that puts restrictions across your support so you can remediate any defects.
Most importantly, using EmpMonitor software may make your work easy, and your company will also get the best employees and hardworking people. It will also help you identify the best employees for the promotion by looking at their performance reports. And this will help you also to find out the more productive employees.