Preventing Time Theft and Buddy Punching in a Hybrid Workplace

Time theft is any misrepresentation of the hours an employee is paid to work, including buddy punching, extended breaks, padded timesheets, and cyberloafing. Hybrid small businesses can prevent it without punitive policies by using timekeeping tied to each employee, mobile punches with geofencing, and clear break and time-off policies. Left unchecked, it skews labor budgets and can lead to Department of Labor wage-and-hour audits.

What Is Time Theft?

Time theft is misrepresenting the hours you’re paid to work. It can happen when employees do personal tasks during work time, take extended breaks, or clock in and out before or after work hours. Some instances of time theft are intentional and malicious; for example, an employee may record time improperly in retaliation if they are angry with the company. Others may be honest mistakes or seem perfectly acceptable to the employees.

In all instances, time theft adds up to high costs for businesses. At $20 an hour, 10 extra minutes a day over 250 workdays is about 41.7 hours, or roughly $833 per employee per year.

What Are Examples of Time Theft?

The most common forms of time theft are buddy punching, extended breaks, cyberloafing, falsifying hours, filling out timesheets from memory, time padding, and remote work misuse.

Buddy punching

Buddy punching happens when another employee clocks in or out for a co-worker who is late, absent, or doesn’t have their clocking-in credentials. Employees may see this as a harmless favor for a colleague. Buddy punching is a common form of time theft in systems that don’t tie each punch to an individual employee.

Extended breaks

Many states’ labor laws require breaks of a specified length, and company policy may allow longer or more frequent breaks to foster a positive culture. An extra 5-10 minutes here and there may not seem like much, but when multiple workers frequently extend breaks, the time adds up and eats into productivity.

Cyberloafing

Cyberloafing is using work time for personal browsing, social media, or online shopping on a computer or phone. Some workers spend most of their work hours on computers and phones, which are full of apps designed to distract them. Modern workers may not even realize how long it’s been since they opened a social media app for a quick mental break. It’s a common way people lose track of work time. These distractions also disrupt concentration, making it difficult to focus on a task.

Falsifying hours

Outright lying about the time spent at work is one of the more egregious forms of time theft. Sometimes described as “ghost shifts” this time can be recorded by buddy punches, unscrupulous managers, or by software that doesn’t connect physical location to a clock punch. 

Filling out timesheet from memory

Filling out timesheets from memory produces inaccurate hours because employees reconstruct their time after the fact and tend to round in their own favor. If they forget or overlook recording, they may be forced to fill in the gaps from memory, a notoriously unreliable data source. This form of time theft may be unintentional.

Time padding

Time padding is rounding recorded work time in the employee’s favor on a manual timesheet, such as entering 5:00 pm when leaving at 4:48 pm. Over time, these extra minutes add up to significant payouts.

Remote work misuse

Remote workers may use the flexibility to attend to personal errands during work time, thinking they will make it up later in the day. But if they never make it up, you can lose significant work time. 

Why Do Employees Commit Time Theft?

Most time theft comes from four causes, not intent to steal: confusion, unclear policy, poor culture, and burnout. Perceptions of what constitutes time theft can vary widely within an organization. 

• Confusion: If your tool is overly complicated or buggy, employees may get discouraged and give up on trying to be precise.
• Unclear policy: Company rules that don’t clearly explain the parameters of breaks and personal time may contribute to misuse
• Bad culture: If workers feel mistreated or asked to work outside standard hours, they may feel padding here and there is justified.
• Burnout: Employees who feel exhausted or overworked take time because they feel physically or mentally unwell

How Can You Prevent Time Theft Without Hurting Morale?

The most effective way to prevent time theft without hurting morale is to pair timekeeping tied to each employee with flexible policies that let people record their real hours honestly. An excessively punitive system can lower morale, but tools that support strict timekeeping and policies that allow employees to be human may help strike a balance.