Human Resource Blog

Falsifying time cards

We have a store manager that was clocking out an employee after the employee left work early because he stated that the employee was working through his lunch hour. What is the penalty for this misconduct? Your help is greatly needed to show explanation to the store manager and the employee, who has been complaining that his paycheck is short. Help…

Thank You!
PATTY

 Check your employee handbook but usually a manager or any employee who falsifies payroll records or time cards is guilty of willful misconduct or gross misconduct. At most companies, this results in immediate termination. By changing the time card to show that this employee was working when he or she had gone home, the manager was guilty of stealing money from the company in the form of payroll dollars for this employee.

The federal FLSA or Fair Labor Standards Act requires that the employer keep accurate records of all times worked, hours worked and wages paid. By falsifying payroll records and time cards, your manager put the company in the position of violating this federal law. Most employers have a zero-tolerance policy for a manager or any employee in this situation. Some companies might suspend the manager for 3 to 7 days without pay, instead of terminating the manager, but there is no law that you must do so. Many employers would choose to make an example of this manager, to send the clear message that falsifying company documents is unacceptable.

At most companies, the manager would be responsible for making sure that the employee took his or her unpaid meal break in accordance with company policy. If it was impossible for the employee to take a break, the manager could have altered the time card to show that the employee did not take a meal break and was therefore entitled to payment for that time. That is very different from claiming that the employee was at work when he or she was actually driving home, or having a beer at the nearest bar.

An employee who skips his or her meal break is entitled to payment for that time. The employee is not necessarily entitled to leave work early that day. Suppose Todd is scheduled to work 8 am to 4:30 pm with a 30-minute unpaid meal break — a total of 8 hours. If Todd works through his meal break on Tuesday, he is entitled to payment for that time, but he is not entitled to go home early that day. Todd works from 8 am to 4:30 pm and is entitled to payment for 8.5 hours that day. Todd may be sent home early on another day to compensate, or he may be paid overtime. However, in every case his time card should always accurately reflect the hours and times that Todd actually worked.

So the manager was willfully negligent in 3 different duties: 1) Ensuring that employees took meal breaks as required by company policy 2) Ensuring that employees worked their scheduled shift, rather than leaving early 3) Falsifying payroll records and time cards to conceal the manager's negligance in the other two areas.

The consequences for the employee are more of a grey area. If the employee knew that his time card was being falsified, many employee handbooks would require that he report that to HR or upper management. Failure to do so would result in immediate termination. This is particularly true if the employee signed off on a time card, work sheet or payroll form that was inaccurate. (An alternate punishment would be unpaid suspension for 3 to 7 days, but there is no law that you must be that lenient.)

It may be that the employee was aware of the changes to his time card, but believed that they were within company policy. This is reasonable given that he had his managers permission for these schedule changes. In that case, it might be more appropriate to issue one or more written reprimands to the employee for not following the company break policy, and time card policy, rather than to terminate him or her.

If the employee was unaware that the manager was changing the time card, and believed that he or she had the manager's permission to work this different schedule, then you could let the employee off with a warning.

You should also review payroll records to ensure that this employee was accurately paid for all the time he or she worked, including overtime if necessary. As an employer, you are responsible for paying workers accurately, even when your managers misbehave.

This is a complex issue so feel free to post comments or additional questions.