Time is money. Whether you are the payer or the payee, the fact remains that every second of your life has value. People work to live, but what happens when you pay people for a certain amount of their time per week and they fill that time with other things besides your assignments? That is time theft, and it is a rampant issue throughout the entirety of American businesses.
How bad is it? According to the American Payroll Association, the average employee steals 4 hours and five minutes per week.
Here is the breakdown of how much time theft is costing your business:
Employee Time Theft
Let’s break this down a little.
If you have five employees and pay them $10 per hour, if each of them steals 4 hours and 5 minutes of pay per week, you are losing $202.50 per week. That is over $1,000 per month!
Think about what you could do by saving that amount of money.
Granted, employees might not be doing this maliciously. Still, when you take any significant amount out of your small-business budget and get nothing in return, it is a big deal.
How to Squash Employee Time Theft
Time theft isn’t usually a malicious act. Rather, when employees clock in a little early or stay a little later without working during that time, it adds up, equating to such a large amount of time theft.
Therefore, you don’t want to come down hard on your employees for it. Rather, there are better methods of squashing employee time theft:
- Interact with your employees: Do things to boost morale and engage with employees. The more your employees get to know you and know you care, the more they will care about the business and adhere to the rules when it comes to time track.
- Invest in reliable time-tracking software: If you are not working with reliable time-tracking software, or you rely on your employees to keep track of their time, you should expect errors. However, by investing in reliable time-tracking software, you can:
- Use GPS tracking or geofencing, so you always know the location of your off-site or mobile employees.
- Use screenshots and URL trackers to know what your employees are doing online during the time they are supposed to be working for you.
- Opt for biometric time clocks: Biometric time clocks ensure that employees do not clock in or out for one another.
In short, time theft is one of the most dangerous types of theft because it can cost a lot of money, without you even realizing anything getting stolen.
Fortunately, you can virtually eliminate time theft by contacting On-Time Web and starting your free 14-day trial today!
