Preventing Time Theft In The Janitorial Industry

One of the biggest advantages of implementing a timekeeping software program includes its “behavior modification” benefits.

When employees check in to a system — whether by phone or fingerprint — the information entered creates an official attendance record. It’s a simple, but powerful distinction from manual timekeeping processes.

“Basically, it’s a deterrent of time theft,” says Gaudy. “It allows us to control hours and monitor employees work schedule.”

Time theft is an alternate term to “time-wasting,” which can include arriving to a shift late or leaving early; excessive socializing; taking extended lunch hours or breaks; talking on the phone; or working at a slow pace to accrue overtime hours, or pay.

According to employment experts, U.S. employers lose billions of dollars annually to time theft related expenses. For example, a janitor making $8/hr. who arrives to their shift five minutes late and leaves five minutes early, who also takes an extra 10 minutes for lunch, costs a BSC roughly $0.13/per minute, or about $2.60 a day.

That may not sound like much at first, but for an employee who works 250 days a year, that number could add up to about $665 annually. Add a few more employees with bad time management into the mix — say, 10 employees — and a BSC can rack up nearly $6,670 in profit losses in a single year.

With a timekeeping system in place employees are more likely to stick to their cleaning routines and arrive on time, instead of waiting to get caught or reprimanded for languid behavior.

It also gives employees a chance to monitor their own schedule and correct any errors should they occur.

Though some employees resisted Interstate’s new time tracking system, Gaudy says the company’s managers made it clear that the software was a part of the payroll process. After training, the company stressed to employees that correctly punching into the timekeeping program was now human resources policy.

“It’s in the discipline of the employees,” says Gaudy. “We terminated a few people because they refused to use the system.”

Since installing timekeeping software systems across the company, Interstate has significantly reduced employee payroll complaints and eliminated “99 percent of time theft concerns,” says Gaudy.

“We’ve cut it down to almost nothing,” he adds.