Human Resource Blog

How can we deal with employees who continually

forget to clock in and out?

This question plagues many employers — in fact, it is the single most popular question on our blog.

It is a thorny problem for many employers, because legally, the employer must pay the worker on time. If the employer does not maintain accurate payroll records of all hours worked, and pay the employee on payday, the employer is in violation of the federal FLSA — the Fair Labor Standards Act. So withholding the employees paycheck is not an option.

Fortunately, the solution is simple. You reward good behavior and punish bad behavior. The employees immediate supervisor should check the time cards or time sheets several times per week, and ideally every day. Any employee who forgets to clock in or out at any point during the week should receive a written reprimand. After three written reprimands, (for not following the time clock policy in three different payroll weeks) the employee should be suspended for 3 days without pay. After another violation, the employee should be terminated. We can guarantee that after one employee is terminated for this, everyone else on staff will remember 99% of the time. (You probably will not even have to terminate one person.)

Studies have shown that positive reinforcement is even more effective then punishment. So there should be a reward for employees who punch in on time. That may simply be praise: *Bob, I really appreciate the fact that you punched in on time every day this week.* Or you might want to make it more fun — one day, hand out a dollar bill to each employee who clocked in on time that day. Or, you may want to make it a formal contest: give each employee a ticket for a drawing, each time he or she punches in or out on time consistently for the whole week. At the end of 4 to 6 weeks, draw one ticket and that person will win a $50 gift certificate to a grocery store, or a $100 Wal-mart gift card. Even a $15 Starbucks gift card can be a powerful motivator, far beyond the dollar value.

This type of behavior modification is most effective when a reward or punishment follows soon after the behavior. So ideally, supervisors would check time sheets daily, or every two to three days. It is going to be more difficult if employees are not rewarded or punished until the end of the pay period.