Employee input his start and finish times all at once regardless of when he arrived and left
An adjudicator has upheld the termination of a FedEx employee for misrepresenting his hours worked.
Wayne Skinner was an admin clerk for FedEx in Mississauga, Ont. He performed customer service functions.
Skinner was hired in 2005. Between November 2009 and February 2012, Skinner received verbal counseling once, written counseling three times and seven written warnings for “habitual tardiness.” These followed FedEx’s disciplinary policy of providing verbal warnings, written warnings, or termination for misconduct.
On May 25, 2012, Skinner signed in at the facility’s security station at 8:30 a.m., the time he was to start his shift. However, it usually took several minutes to proceed from security to his workstation — which is why FedEx recommended its employees arrive at least several minutes before the start of their shifts — and Skinner arrived at his workstation at 8:34 a.m. Despite the time, he logged into FedEx’s eTime system and recorded his start time as 8:30.
Company policy included requirements for employees to be at their workstations on time and to enter their start time if they were late. The policy also stated that falsification of company documents or business records — including eTime — was considered “inappropriate and unacceptable conduct.”
FedEx caught the discrepancy between Skinner’s check-in at security and his punch-in time for work, which couldn’t have been the same as he recorded. Considering his previous instances of discipline for tardiness, FedEx terminated Skinner’s employment for tardiness and time theft.
Skinner grieved the termination, arguing being four minutes late didn’t warrant termination and he denied time theft. However, the adjudicator found the long history of tardiness was a factor in his termination.
In addition, the adjudicator found it was likely Skinner entered a false start time not just on May 25, 2012, but possibly other times as well. He could not have started work at the same time as he checked into security, and it turned out the records showed he often entered exact start, stop and lunch times — possible evidence that he entered them all at the same time.
