Prevent Employee Time Theft While Working Remotely
Many businesses have switched to working remotely for the safety of their employees from Covid-19 pandemic. For a large number of organizations it was their first time going remote. Managing remote teams is a difficult task especially for those who have never done it.. When employees are working from home it’s challenging for the manager to detect and prevent remote work time theft and any other issues. In this article we will discuss what is time theft and how to take measurements to prevent time or schedule abuse among remote employees.
What Is Time Theft?
Time theft has become a common issue for the remote workforce as they are away from the workplace and they are under no supervision. Time theft is an act of inflating the attendance unfairly and accepting payment for the hours that they have not actually worked. This act causes businesses to lose their precious time and money.
5 Ways To Prevent Time Theft And Improve Performance In The Workplace
Time theft causes lower productivity, which in turn leads to various kinds of losses for the businesses. Fortunately, there are many ways that business owners can implement to eliminate the risk of workplace time theft. Consider the following strategies:
1. Establish rules and expectations: It’s very condemning for businesses to address behaviors and consequences of time theft to employees. Explain to your employees how you measure performance, the importance of deadlines and clarify what is not accepted at all. As employees will work remotely, you must also address duration working hours and their availability during work hours. Overall you must let your employees know what the company expects from them, how the policy works, what may happen if company rules and policies are violated and also the benefits that company offers to its productive employees.
2. Check in regularly: As an employer you have to regularly communicate with your remote employees, knowing what they are working on and how everything is going on. Let them understand you are always concerned about project deadlines and don’t want employees to fail at performing for the company. But also at the same time be understanding. If employees are aware that you are supportive, they can share their problems or take breaks and relax when they need to, they will be less likely to use company time to refuel their energy.
3. Keep employees engaged: Support employees during challenges and successes plays a vital role in motivating them to perform high. When an employee completes any task with efficiency and performs good, rewarding them publicly will encourage the individual and the whole team to work more productively. When employees feel appreciated, they are more likely to feel thankful and work hard for the company.
4. Improve accountability at work: This links in with performance management; help your employees in every possible way to make them feel a part of your company. If your employees don’t enjoy working in your company, if they feel less recognized or if they feel they are not going to hit the target, all these can demotivate them to perform low and more likely to indulge in time theft. To build a productive team, share company success stories to them and make them accountable for what they do at work.
5.Use tracking software: To eliminate the risk of time theft in remote workforce, it would be appropriate to use time-tracking software to keep tabs on employees. Most of the time-tracking software, also known as monitoring software, has lots of features that help employers to monitor work activities of remote workforce in great detail. With features like time tracking, web/app usage and productivity metrics it is impossible for employees to manipulate timesheets. The software keeps record of total working hours and keeps all these records under a single dashboard, helping managers to have a clear idea about how long and how productively an employee worked. You can also allow employees to work flexible hours, let them take frequent breaks so that they don’t feel the need to commit time theft if they have other commitments—such as personal tasks or emergency work—during traditional work hours.
For More Information
Time theft is a nearly an act of fraud that can happen to any organization. It’s important for employers to take necessary precautions to eliminate the risk. A combination of friendliness, support, clear guidelines, tools, and employee feedback can help companies lower their risk of time theft and unproductivity. Learn to trust employees which will help them to do the right thing and keep them engaged for the betterment of the company.
Finally, to wrap up, eliminate time-theft and increase your team’s productivity with CloudDesk employee monitoring software, which can be used to track time and digital activity of your employees from their remote location. Start your 14-day free trial today so you can test out the innovative CloudDesk software and see how it will help you meet your business goals!
