Forgetting to sign out

Paul in Cannon Beach

Our housekeeping manager is frustrated with some of her part-time employees who forget to sign out for their lunch breaks or even at the end of her shifts. This creates work for her to try to track down the right times or close estimates and add them in later.

Anything she can do about this besides writing each incident up as a disciplinary issue?

Thanks!

Paul

Don D

What recommendations have you given this supervisor?

Pork

Paul it is a disciplinary issue on both parts. The supervisor who is not strong enough to be a leader is a disciplinary issue; the employees who are obviously, a reflection of the weak manager is, likewise, a disciplinary issue. Write them up or simply tell the part timer it is not working out and get you another part-time, who will follow instructions and procedures. Given the problem does not go away, then the supervisor most likely needs to step-up and carry the ball or go sit on the bench in another game or place. Good Luck Pork.

Paul in Cannon Beach

The supervisor says she constantly reminds her hourly workers to follow proper sign out procedures. She is a conscientous supervisor and some of the employees who have been written up have no record of previous problems.

So, my take is its a matter of just remembering to do something rather than intentional disregard for a procedure.

My only suggestion so far as I await the wisdom of the forum is that she might consider assigning a certain unpopular chore to anyone who forgets to sign out. So, if Johnny and Sally go to lunch and don't sign out. When they get back the supervisor tells them that at the end of the shift they will get to rinse out the toilet scrubber buckets. When everyone else gets to sign out and go home, they will stay signed in, rinse the buckets and then (hopefully) remember to sign out.

This is a headache but not the end of the world type problem. So, I would play it off kind of fun without compromising our policies.

Any problems with that suggestion? Any others?

Don D

I feel that things like this simply don't 'change' unless and until one certain thing is affected, and that's pay. Aside from the issue of affecting minimum wage, I'd rather see the punitive measure involve pay than mop buckets. If you can't find a way to do that legally, perhaps the reverse gimmick of positive rewards involving pay can be put in place for those who DO comply. This might do wonders for the 'bad memories' forgetting to sign out. But, here I go talking about paying people extra for doing what they're supposed to be doing in the first place and I abhor that. But, you asked for ideas. You didn't say I had to agree with my own idea. x:-)

Paul in Cannon Beach

You changed directions in that post so fast I'm worried you hurt yourself Don.

Paul

Don D

Hey, I'm trying to be versatile and open minded (for a change). I did pop my back though.

Renie

Sounds like a good idea to me. If you can condition forgetful employees to associate anything, whether it be positve or negative, with their signing out you have a better chance of them developing a routine. Maybe put cookies by the sign out area to draw them in and they will get in the habit of thinking of that area as a place they want to go to.

Rockie

In our company, this is handled by disciplinary procedures. If the supervisor doesn't discipline employees and creates headaches for payroll, their manager will write them (the supervisor) up. We have electronic time clocks and if an employee doesn't clock in and out properly(and the supervisor is not notified) and it's not recorded as time worked on the clock, then their paycheck is short. Payroll can only issue a check as to what is on the clock. It's not their responsibility to run employees down to find out "why" they failed to clock properly. Once an employee misses some time, they learn to clock properly.

I know y'all will say we have to pay an employee if they work - that's true. But, we have to know when they work; otherwise, it's perfectly legal to make them wait until the next payroll is run if they fail to follow proper clocking procedures (or so I'm told by the DOL).

But, if this is a problem of manual time sheets where supervisors review and find this type of thing happening over and over and the employees keep coming to them with "exceptions" to the time sheet, I would darn well discipline the employee. Why make more work and hassle for yourself because they won't do the right thing?