Despite probably starting as an innocent favour for a friend, buddy punching is actually one of the most frequent methods of time theft, which causes costly errors for businesses. Over time this has a massive impact on your business especially when it comes to the productivity of your team, payroll hour calculations, accuracy of timesheets and accounting the billable work hours to clients. One of the simplest ways to counter this problem is by adopting automated time and attendance systems that will monitor individual employee in and out times.

Create a clear time theft company policy

Along with the introduction of a digital time and attendance system you must implement a clearly defined company policy regarding time theft to create an overall morale boost. This will help employees who do not shirk their responsibilities to feel valued. It will ensure that all employees pull their weight to work towards the business’s success. When employees understand that buddy punching has an adverse effect on the company and that it will no longer be tolerated they will adapt to the convenient attendance systems more easily.

Buddy punching is a form of employee absenteeism, and an absent employee does not contribute to the workflow despite being clocked-in. A co-worker will have to pick up the slack for a missing employee or the company performance is affected. This is unfair on employees who do perform and leads to a drop in morale. Fair treatment is essential for an employee and in order to avoid a high employee turnover.

Benefits of an automated time and attendance system

Buddy punching creates problems such as a lack of communication where an employee will try buddy punching rather than talk to a manager. This is not good for the workflow of your businesses. Your employees are your most valuable asset and should feel comfortable to speak with managers if there is a problem and they need some personal time. Better communication will lead to a better work culture.

When a new employee joins if they see senior team members buddy punching they will think it is the company culture, the norm to be adopted. With a digital attendance system in place this stops such behaviour from the very beginning. While strengthening your company’s time theft policy, a time and attendance system also streamlines your timekeeping data for increased efficiency. Get more details on how to implement a time and attendance system for your business, today.