Workers using time clocks in Canada say they cheat the system less than those in other countries
As far as time theft goes, Canadians punching the clock are the least likely to bill for hours they didn’t work. Or, they are the least likely to admit to it.
A recent study by the Workforce Institute, a Kronos think tank that does surveys on workforce management issues, had Canadians the least likely to say they were time thieves. When the online survey asked employees who use a time clock if they had ever done anything to receive
more pay such as clocking in earlier or out later than scheduled, having someone else clock them in or out, neglecting to clock out for lunch or breaks, adding time to timesheets, or other activities along these lines, 26 per cent of Canadians surveyed admitted they had.
While that doesn’t make for a country of saints, it’s certainly lower than the numbers that came from other countries.
In India, 73 per cent of workers using a time clock admitted to engaging in one or more of these behaviours, followed by 72 per cent in China, 51 per cent in Australia, 49 per cent in Mexico, 37 per cent in the United Kingdom, 33 per cent in France and 33 per cent in the United States.
It was the first time the institute has done the study internationally. In 2009, they conducted the study in the U.S. but didn’t ask employees in other countries.
The numbers were a bit surprising, said Joyce Maroney, director of the Workforce Institute at Kronos, based in Chelmsford, Mass.
“Canadians look like champs, the most honest nationality in the world,” she said. “The variability on the surface of it across the different regions might seem a little surprising.”
Workers from India and China might have more time theft because there is less technology, said Maroney.
“I think a lot of people think of India and China as hard-working places and that’s because they are, I think that’s absolutely true,” she said. “I would suspect that in places like India and China there is probably a much lower penetration of technology being used to keep track of people’s time.”
Where there is a lower penetration of technology and workers are signing into work on a clipboard or a manager is counting people on the way into the workplace, it’s easier tocheat the system, she said.
“When you are using an automated system to keep track of people’s time, I think it is harder to cheat,” she said. “Employers can put constraints in the way they program the time-keeping device so people can’t punch in early or punch out late.”
Using an automated time management system allows employers to look at data over time and find patterns of abuse more easily, she said.
“Obviously these things can be done manually, but the bigger an organization gets and the more numerous and complex the payrolls it needs to manage and the more complex the union or legal compliance environment in which the company operates — all of these things make time keeping progressively more challenging,” she said.
Stopping time theft with technology
So how do automated systems keep employees honest?
“Having consistent and compliant rules that can be managed through an automated solution certainly will help employers keep a better handle on paying people for time that they haven’t earned,” said Maroney.
What timekeeping system a company needs is highly dependent on the industry and the workforce, said Mark Nickson, a managing director at Telliris, based in Connecticut.
“In certain industries there seems to be more of a prevalence to do with buddy punching than other industries,” he said.
Buddy punching, the practice of having one person clock in for another, is a frequent type of time theft.
“There are certain industries where, unfortunately, the workforce pay scale is sufficiently low that there’s a higher prevalence of them buddy punching,” he said.
In industries where time theft is prevalent, companies can choose time management systems where an employee needs to have their fingerprint read or prove they are the one punching in some other way, before they can clock in.
Besides fingerprinting there are also systems that require an imprint of a person’s hand before the clock starts.
There are call-in time systems for remote employees that store a biometric of a person’s voice so the company can ensure only the employee can call in to start their day at work.
Some industries where Nickson has seen a higher prevalence of buddy punching and other time theft practices are transportation, parking facilities and certain health-care workplaces, he said.
It’s most likely to happen among workforces where pay is low and where it is difficult to keep employees for long periods of time, he said.
Systems that use biometrics have become more popular in North American in the past seven years because the systems are less expensive and are offered by more companies.
“You can definitely see where there’s been uptake but it’s definitely in selective industries and it’s primarily based on the kind of workforce,” said Nickson.
