Should you dock employee’s time?
The short answer is no. Under no circumstances is it ok to dock an employee’s time. Even when you feel as if you need to punish an employee, or if you are trying to avoid paying overtime for the week. Let me explain this a little further:
- If you have an employee who works an 8-hour shift, but they worked through their 1-hour lunch, which results in a 9 hour day, it’s not ok to dock the hour and insert their lunch. They were still working, so they must be paid for that hour.
- For example, if their shift began at 10:00 am, but they showed up at 10:30 am, and they still placed 10:00 am on their timesheet. You may be tempted to slash the hours when they show up to work late. However, you still need to compensate them for the hours they actually worked. Not the hours that are scheduled. This is where a timekeeping system will eliminate this issue.
- However, if the employee states they took a lunch, but forgot to clock out for lunch (bona fide, 30 minutes or more), then the time can be marked as a missed punch with an initial from the employee and their manager. So both parties are aware of the punch.
- A final example is when you know the employee is at risk of working overtime, and you ask them to clock out and continue working at the 40-hour mark, this is illegal, and now you will have an issue with employees working off the clock.
The Department of Labor has recovered $311 Million dollars in wages owed to employees this year alone, in 2019. In this video, I share some of the latest cases that have been settled by the Department of Labor / Wages and Hours Division and offer some tips on how you can avoid making the same mistakes.
Overall it’s not only unethical, but it’s also illegal to mess with the hours worked by your staff and the wages that are due to them.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send me an email at yonica@hrgirl411.com