How do you get employees to remember to punch the time clock?
skippy
18 Posts
We've had a time clock for the past year and some employees still can't remember to punch in and out. We have reminders at strategic locations and it just isn't working. We have to manually amend the time each week. Can we have a policy that states something to the effect that the time noted on the clock is the time we will pay, adjusting for missed "punch out" only. If an employee forgets to punch out for lunch, we will deduct 1 hour (or their scheduled lunch) from their pay and if they forget to punch out when they leave at the end of the day, we will adjust to their scheduled hour of departure as verified by their supervisor. It will be left unsaid that if they forget to punch in, they can go punch in when they think of it and they will be paid from that time. For all I know, some employees may be "forgetting" to punch in because they're running late, and the manual alteration is documenting they are on time. HELP!
Comments
Our clock calculates time per day and total time per week, so MOST of our people catch problems early and have adjustments made and initialed. In some cases those adjustments seem just a little too convenient.
With those who don't even notice a problem, I find they rarely remember what they did yesterday, much less two weeks ago. That's why I started going by scheduled times and lunches. If they have a problem with their paycheck and can justify an error, adjustments are made the following pay period.
Luckily, the supervisor over a large percentage of our employees is really good about watching timecards and spotting potential problem areas.
Whatever you do, be very careful reducing employees' pay or hours. The Fair Labor Standards Act still requires you to pay them for hours worked.
James Sokolowski
Senior Editor
M. Lee Smith Publishers