Stealing Time

There is a joke that goes back to the 1970s: A construction crew leaves the shop in the morning to drive to their worksite. A half hour later, the crew leader calls the supervisor back at his office to say, "Hey, boss. We forgot our shovels." The supervisor responds, "OK, I'll throw them in the back

The definition of time theft was once largely limited to employees having coworkers clock in for them before they actually arrived at work, or having coworkers clock out for them after they had already left. Technology is helping employers address this problem, however. For example, biometric time and attendance systems (which recognize fingerprints or eye retinas) require the actual employee to clock him- or herself in and out. Other options include badge readers and bar code scanners.

Such technology only scratches the surface of the real problem with time theft, though. Today, many employees are "stealing time" from employers by taking longer-than-scheduled meal and coffee breaks, engaging in personal phone calls and e-mails, engaging in personal conversations with co-workers, playing games or daydreaming and/or surfing the Internet for personal reasons. Some employees even steal full days by taking unwarranted sick days.

How much does this cost you? If you operate a company with 100 employees who earn $15 an hour, and each employee wastes an average of only 30 minutes a day ($7.50), your daily bill is $750. Your annual bill (250 workdays) is $187,500. Is that any less of a problem than if the employees raided the petty cash box (or an on-premise cash register) each year to the tune of $187,500?

However, even these costs are low estimates: To determine costs more accurately, take the total number of hours each employee is scheduled during the year, then subtract holidays, vacation days, sick and personal days, unproductive time spent in meetings, etc., to get the total number of "real" hours the employee is expected to work each year. Then, take the hourly pay rate and add payroll taxes, benefits package cost and other expenses.

What you will find is that the hourly rate you end up paying employees is significantly greater than what is written on paper, making time theft an even more expensive proposition.

Diane C.O. Gilson, president of Info Plus Accounting specializes in this type of computation for employers. According to Gilson, if you pay an employee $17 an hour, the actual pay rate in most cases ends up being about $29 per hour. "On average, your workers end up costing you 50% to 100% more than their hourly rate," she says.

It all adds up. An article in the June 21, 2006 issue of the Toronto's Globe & Mail newspaper noted that a British employment law expert estimated the cost of lost productivity from employees in his country watching the World Cup soccer matches in the workplace this summer to be $8.25 billion.

The impetus for employers beginning to look at the costs of time theft actually began in 1983, when Robert Half International published a report estimating that the average employee steals four hours and 15 minutes per week, which translates into over five full work weeks per year. The report also estimated the total time theft nationwide per year to be $137 billion. The company has continued to study time theft trends over the years. A 2005 report, published by the company's Accountemps division, polled executives on employees' Internet usage. On average, executives estimated that employees spend almost an hour per day surfing the web or sending/receiving e-mails that are not related to work.

Before you can begin to tackle the problems and costs associated with time theft, though, it is important to identify the causes. On the surface, it may seem like a no-brainer: Employees are purposely "stealing time," because they are lazy and/or dishonest. Actually, there are numerous possible reasons that your employees may not end up "putting in a full day's work for a full day's pay."

Sarah Gayer, president of Sare & Associates, a human resources consulting firm that provides training on time management, has identified a number of possible reasons that employees may not work every paid minute. "Time theft has always been a problem, but it is becoming more prevalent," she says. "One reason is that the Baby Boom generation has a lot of demands placed on it outside of work, so they try to get some of it done during work, or they arrive late or leave early to try to meet these nonwork responsibilities."

In addition, these individuals are having more demands placed on them at work, according to Gayer. As a result of downsizings, for example, surviving employees are often expected to do more work than they did before, which they resent. As such, they look for ways to take breaks from this work. "Companies are also expecting employees to be available around the clock by providing them with cellphones, laptops, Internet connections and Blackberrys," she says.

The result is a tendency for employees to say, "If I need some time off during the day, I'm going to take it."

For the sake of simplicity, we can organize time theft into five possible causes: Employees may be dishonest, disenfranchised, disconnected, disorganized, and/or distracted.

Dishonest

Robert Smithson, a partner in the law firm of Pushor Mitchell LLP, notes that there are dishonest employees in the workplace who will steal time if they can get away with it, and the employer needs to create policies and procedures to deal with such problems.

The first thing to account for, though, is that there has to be some flexibility. "Employers need to realize that employees will always have, to some degree, a need to deal with personal matters while at work," he says. "It is not reasonable, for instance, to prevent employees from receiving any calls of a nonwork nature in the course of a work day."

Smithson recommends creating a comprehensive policy governing the use of technology by employees in the workplace, such as cellphones, Internet access, e-mail, laptops, etc. Next, monitor employees. A low-tech way is to simply have supervisors observe employees throughout the shift. A high-tech system could involve video surveillance or other forms of electronic monitoring, such as tracking computer usage.

"You should also implement a progressive disciplinary program," he says. "However, be reasonable in enforcing this. Again, you need to realize that all employees will have some nonproductive time during the day, such as taking personal phone calls or checking the Internet to get a weather forecast."

Disenfranchised

Laureen Snider, professor of sociology at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and author of a report titled, "Theft of Time: Disciplining Through Science and Law," suggests that two possible reasons for employees wasting time on the job relate to job dissatisfaction and the belief that employers steal time from employees by requiring unpaid overtime and expecting employees to attend nonpaid company functions.

"Almost all of the studies on why employees steal time, or anything else for that matter, suggest that many employees are dissatisfied with their jobs," she says. "In addition, many employees feel that their employers are expecting more of them than they should-more than 100%."

She has found that this can show up in a number of ways. For example, studies show that U.S. workers work longer hours than workers in Canada or any of the European countries. In addition, with all of the new technology connecting employees to the workplace, such as Blackberries, cellphones, a lot of employees feel they can never get away from work. "And in many cases, they are also expected to donate time to their employers' causes, such as charitable events," she says. Adding to these problems is the fact that many employees do not feel their employers have a sense of loyalty to them, as is evidenced by the continuing number of layoffs in companies, cutbacks in pension programs and cutbacks in benefits programs.

Another concern is that some employers engage in surveillance of lower-level employees, using various types of electronic tracking devices that tell management where they are at any given point in time and what they are or are not doing.

According to Snider, the solutions involve providing employees with meaningful and satisfying work, extending loyalty to them, offering better benefits, etc. "These have to involve action, though, not just 'cheerleading rhetoric,'" she says. "Employees see through this quickly."

Some employers may worry about lost profits if they offer these types of programs. Snider disagrees: "There are numerous examples of companies that operate with a sense of social responsibility that are very successful."

Disconnected

Marilyn Bird, regional manager of Professional Staffing Services for Robert Half International, notes that the surveys the company conducts on time theft strongly suggest that the primary cause is that employees are unaware of what is expected of them and what the rules are related to the use of time. "Most employees don't want to waste time," she says. "They want to get their jobs done, and they want to do good jobs."

Once they are told what is expected of them and what the consequences will be for doing what is expected (and not doing what is expected), then the problem tends to diminish significantly.

According to Bird, the first step is to create policies related to the use of time, such as a break policy, an e-mail policy, an Internet policy, etc. The policies should address topics such as the consequences of each: Here is what will happen if you fail to meet expectations. And here is what will happen if you perform ahead of schedule.

Once the policies have been drafted, it is important to communicate them to employees in a personal way, to ensure proper emphasis. "The best way to discuss expectations is in formal training sessions or one-on-one, rather than an e-mail blast or handing people a booklet on their first day and expecting them to read it," she says. That is, if you just informally or incidentally communicate the policies, employees will not pay much attention, because they figure you do not care that much. Further, the personal communication during training or one-on-one allows for questions, answers and further discussions.

Disorganized

According to Gilson, there are cases where employees have someone clock in or out for them, or they otherwise report their time fraudulently. However, more often than not, the problem is the fact that the employees are just disorganized and do not have a sense for how much their wasted time is costing the company. "For example, it is easy to lose a few minutes here and there before and after breaks and lunches," she says.

In addition, a lot of times employees are unprepared for work. For example, they may not think ahead about what they need to do. "This can occur, for example, when a worker heads to a location to do a job, but forgets to bring one or more of the tools he's going to need to do the job," she says.

A lot of employees also find it easy to get involved in personal conversations with coworkers, and these conversations can continue longer than the employees intended. This may especially be the case when they are going from one part of the building to another and end up seeing several people they know and maybe have not talked with in awhile.

The solution, according to Gilson, is to raise their level of awareness. "This won't eliminate all of the problem, but a lot of employees will begin to pay attention to the time they waste and try to take steps to reduce it," she says.

If problems do continue, other steps need to be taken. For example, some employees always seem to have some sort of personal crisis. "These can be problems at home with spouse or kids, or a family member calling to say the garage door won't open," she says. In such cases, supervisors should be asked to keep track of the time that the employee spends on personal issues, then have a talk with the employee. In certain instances, you may need to cut your losses with the employee. In either case, though, you will need documentation during the termination process.

Distracted

Carolyn Rickard-Brideau, a partner with Little Diversified Architecture Consulting, realizes that there have always been a number of reasons for what is perceived as time theft in organizations. However, she is seeing a new trend creeping into the workplace. "There are some inter-generational changes taking place in the workplace," she says. "Younger workers today prefer to mix work and play." Rickard-Brideau is aware that most older workers are comfortable with going to work, then going home. Work and recreation time are separate. "However, younger workers want to work for awhile, then play for awhile, or maybe even do both simultaneously," she says. This will happen even when there are corporate constructs saying, "You will do such and such at this time and in this way."

According to Rickard-Brideau, corporations need to realize that they will get the most out of their younger workers when they help tailor the work processes to the way these people prefer to work in order to get the best out of them. "For example, if you let employees spend some time during the day to play, you will find that they will often end up staying later to get more work done," she says.

Perspective

According to Gayer, time theft seems to be less common in workplaces where managers both empower their employees to do what needs to be done, and then hold them accountable for doing it. That is, managers provide the employees with goals and then provide them with the resources to achieve these goals. As such, the employees are more prone to work toward these goals. "This, of course, necessitates having qualified people in management positions," she says, "and making sure they are trained in how to delegate."