Have you ever thought about whether employees work the entire time you are paying them while WFH? Don't you bother checking the working hours of employees? Like, whether they are working the entire time or are up to something else. Even if they are working remotely in the pandemic, that doesn't mean they can do whatever they want. They need to take the official hours seriously because they are paid in full for the time which they are wasting. Overall, it's a complete case of time theft. Now, you might be wondering what is time theft? 

Well, stealing from working hours and putting it to their personal use is time theft. Ultimately, it results in a decrease in productivity. Some of the cases are: 

• Timesheet fraud
• Wasting time in personal activities
• Unauthorized overtime
• Late starts
• Proxy attendance
• Long breaks
• Buddy punching, and more. 

So, being an employer, you have to keep an eye on your workers and make sure that there is no wastage of time. 

But, how?

The answer is Time Tracking. Well, before jumping to the technical solution, let's discuss some tips logically. 

SET YOUR EXPECTATIONS:

Some employees are unaware of the time theft issue. So, being responsive, the management must set the expectations clean and clear with their workers to avoid such situations in the future. Also, the company should outline some policies like: 

• Overtime rules
• Personal tasks
• Employee socializing during working hours
• Not checking attendance on time, and more.

BE COMMUNICATIVE:

When you can track the time thefts by some of your workers. Try communicating with them to know the actual reason behind this. Ping them randomly on the chat messenger for official work and check whether they are still stealing from their working hours. If you still find such unprofessional behavior, take strict action against them. 

PAYROLL MANAGEMENT: 

Add a new policy in the official guidelines. Declare to all your employees that the payroll will be calculated and initiated based on their time and attendance. Make it very clear to the employees that this rule will strictly be prosecuted to maintain and balance the firm's productivity. 

EMPLOYEES INTERESTS: 

Being strict employers, you should have a look at your employee's interests. Like, spending a few bucks on free snacks or office trips can be a bit encouraging for your employees. It will help them perform their work in a much better way and produce more output for the firm. 

After understanding what is time theft, it's time to skip towards the technological solutions to understand and manage what is time theft is, let's see how to do:

TIME TRACKING SOFTWARE

You can install time tracking software in your employee's systems to keep track of their working hours to check the total time they are spending. There is software that will help you classify between active hours and non-active hours. Hence, in this way, you can be aware of their work schedule and take strict action against the non-working employees. 

Some of the best time tracking software are: 

EMPMONITOR: 

It is an employee management software that helps you manage your employees along with the time tracking software. From maintaining productivity to checking web usage, EmpMonitor offers services to their users to maintain their firm hassle-free. The features of EmpMonitor are:

• Screenshot monitoring
• Productivity tracker
• Onboarding software
• Attendance tracker, and more

You can also watch: EmpMonitor: The Best Time Tracking Software

TOGGL:

The software supports Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows, and browsers for their clients to keep an eye on the employees. It is a perfect choice for startups and businesses with fewer employees. The benefits you get are:

• Set estimated project timelines and budgets
• Browser extensions for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome
• It has a separate Toggl android application for smartphones

HARVEST:

Harvest is a monitoring tool that collects the data and creates visual reports for the management to understand their worker's activities. It has an easy to use interface and offers:

• Automatic invoice creation for clients
• Add comments and tasks for your workers
• On-time reminders to collect payments from clients, and more. 

FINAL VERDICT: 

Overall, we hope our readers understood what is time theft and how you can avoid the same in the workplace, especially while your employees are working from home in such a pandemic. But, a little tip for my readers, that you should also understand and support your employees in this deadly situation and build a good formal relationship with them.