Dishonest logging of work hours by a colleague

Hi all,

I am in a delicate situation at the moment. I noticed a couple of months ago that a colleague of mine is writing her time of work - often adding a considerable number of hours. I know for a fact that she is not working from home. The company I am working for is facing difficulties at the moment and I find her behaviour quite unfair towards the others. I am wondering what to do, shall I go to her and ask her? what is the law like in Germany? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
al

Is she paid hourly? Or does she have a fixed salary but can claim overtime?

How do you know that she's not working from home? Can she do her work in the evening, maybe?

I'm not condoning her behaviour, just trying to understand the situation.

The law says she can be fired on the spot if this behavoiur can be proven. But ussuallay companies don't go that far on a first occasion, they will issue an "Abmahnung" including the threat to fire them instantly in the case of repetition. But proving that she didn't work these hours is quite difficult.

You could also talk to the Betriebsrat (if you got one) how this situation can/should be handled. I wouldn't mention the colleagues name in this discussion.

She is paid per hour and I have asked my superviser whether she was working from home... answer was no. As for proving that she is not working these hours it is pretty obvious when she writes that she is leaving at 18 and not here at 17:15 anymore... or when she says she came at 9 when she was actually at work at 10...

You may know for a fact, but do you have actual proof? If you do, the responses to your post may differ.

In that case the supervisor is not doing his/her job properly.

talk to her directly. if you cant do this then shut up and put up. why? because proving this will be very difficult, and you personaly will not be trusted by anybody else ever again. nobody likes a snitch and mud will stick on you too. give her a chance to change her ways without it getting heavy, you may feel its unfair on the company, but dont forget this company will have no problems being unfair in "letting you go" no matter how hard you've worked or you feel you dont deserve it.

yeah you have a point Gideon. As for evidence I am not the only one which has noticed it in the company, 3 more colleagues have too, but no one knows what do do... or no one dares...

Hey,

got a same situation here. And not just a few hours but a lot of hours a month. I decided not to say anything and see how it goes. The guy will get away with it on the short run, but on the long run his name is not the best that is around. It feels pretty unfair but that is the way it is. Just keep your own integerity. That will last a lot longer.

G.

The company is a small one... so no Betriebsrat

how about an anonymous note left on their desk, one of the times when they are being paid to be there but are not?

anonymous notes are soooo German! I find them to be the lowest form of whinging and never take them seriously. If someone doesn't have the balls to tell you to your face what they think then they aren't even worth thinking about.

If you have a problem with her behaviour be adult enough to tell her.

Personally, I don't really care what work ethics my colleagues have (that is up to their conscience etc) as long as it doesn't impact on me.

what to do. tell her take her aside say "other colleges have asked you to do so."
which is half lie yea, but no, you said yourself that others seem to have noticed so its very believable to start your gambit that way it removes a little bit of the tension for you. what ever you do dont go in in a german fashion. avoid aggression, personal accusations and arogance. as you dont know why shes doing this it may be wise to ask her first is everything is ok in life. who knows she may be having an affair or looking for a second job or other such "valid" reasons.

or just go ahead and go to the boss and get her sacked. but remember what we reap we sow in life.

OG, you work for a big company, so someone scamming their hours wouldn't matter. In a small company, it could make a fair difference.

I would be uncomfortable with the situation too, but I would take the colleague aside, not just for a minute or so, but more like lunch or so. Say that other colleagues have noticed her scamming her timesheet, and were talking about it. Warn her that she should be more accurate in what she writes down, as who knows what the consequences will be?

That way, no names are named as to who was noticing her scamming, and you come across as doing her a favour, rather than scolding her.

EDIT: Yeah, Gideon and I are thinking along the same lines.

gids, I cannot agree with "others asked me to talk to you". But I do think that going out for a smoke/coffee/water with the said colleague and breaching the subject à la "other co-workers and I have noticed", immediately stressing the fact that you have not informed the management and leaving the decision to her is possibly the lowest level action.
EDIT: Showem was faster, for all that the UK is an hour behind.

Unless you are getting fucked over personally, do nothing, it has nothing to do with you.

She said the company is facing difficulties. If the co-worker is overcharging it increases the company's liabilities leading to more financial difficulties and possibly shutting down. So it is her business.

it all depends how personaly brave you are, and also how skilled you are in shielding and channeling any aggresion which comes from the initial point. its a personal/situation/relationship question.

Yup, then tell her superior and be prepared to look like a fuckwit if your wrong or a snitch if your correct. Good luck, tough spot.

Of course there is the alternative route.

Get some time sheets.
Turn up computer speakers.
Click on this: The Rollins Band


And at the chorus start throwing timesheets at her.
Feel free to scream along at the "LIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR" bits (you should use your free hand to point at her should you take up this option).

Effective? Yes (sort of). Tactful? Possibly not.

are the financial difficulties directly linked to her misconduct or managment being a bunch of incapable twats. (excuse the technical terminology used there) companies you dont personaly own will have a tendancy to fuck you in the arse if necessary be it for what ever reason. they may lube you up first by using words "regretable" and "sorry" and "i wish there could be another way", but they still do what they have to do to survive. Unless you have shareholding and employee profit sharing Timmeh is right.

but on a personal level i would still talk to her, you might need that favour back when your looking for a new job in couple of months.

I was thinking that perhaps you'd better be looking for alternative employment anyway - if the company's going down the tubes & other(s) appear not to be pulling their weight.

thanks for your help... I never thought about that before...

Firstly, you are not your brother's keeper and whatever morals people have with regard to the 'science' of timesheet accounting are their individual issue. They are the one's taking the risk of being fired on the spot for gross misconduct.

Outside of that, you could achieve your aim by gently taking them to one side over a coffee or whatever and letting them know, as a friend, that others have remarked upon their timesheets and that you are just warning them that ' someone else' may tell on them.

This soothes your conscience and solves the problem without getting involved in a confrontation.

you have posted several times within the last hour regarding the problem of a colleague not keeping her hours.

How would you feel if she told the boss that she has a colleague who is in the office during working hours, but spends a lot of work-time on Toytown?

There are lots of ways to not work a full day

Gasp!

sooo true.

coffee breaks
water coolers
cigarette breaks
archiving and backing up breaks
walking around and looking like i'm busy breaks
Toytown breaks
ebaybreaks
cheapflight searches
cheap holiday searches
really bored find out something completely odd in wiki searches

the list goes on...

ever heard of holiday???

yep, on holiday at the moment...sorry!!!

Have just read some of the comments and to be honest in the company I work for, by not saying anything you would be as guilty as the other person. The other person is defrauding the company, and you are allowing them to get away with it. I have just signed a company business conduct document and one of the points in that document is, have you, (i'm paraphrasing) witnessed anything that your colleagues have done which contravenes this business conduct policy. You have and therefore (in my compnay) would be in breach of your own business conduct policy
No anonymous notes, either tell a 'manager' or if you are the manager sit them down in a room and tell them.. You owe it to the company..

Just my thoughts
BuLi

Very much a '1984' document in my mind BuLi, Pol Pot and other dictators had people adopting the same stance.

A cheap easy cop out is to just casually say to this person something along the lines of….

“Oh I was out with my friend last night, he/she is really upset because he/she has just been fired from work because of falsifying their time sheet. He/she is devastated because he/she now has no job and is in severe financial difficulty�.

If they don’t take the hint then they deserve everything they get IMO

you will in all probability find that this document is verfassungswiedrig and unzulässig. i wouldnt want to be the company on the recieving end of a court case using this document as the basis of their argument. you could ask your lawyers, you owe your company that.

Have to disagree entirely,

I was asked recently to provide evidence to the police for such a case of this. The organisation was the NHS (UK of course) can't think of many bigger organisations and look at the mess they are in financially.

The lady was a operating theatre assistant on circa 17k.
She was claiming so much unauthorised overtime i.e time she hadn't worked that her salary went up to 44K
It was then when the payroll office twigged (her "manager" had not noticed!)

for goodness sake, tell someone, its theft pure and simple. If the practice is widespread it could have a big impact on the companies finances and you could find yourself out of a job in the worst case.

Laurelandhardy, I know the company that OG works for and I know they aren't suffering financially. Not saying it's right, just saying it's easier to ignore your colleagues' work ethics when you know that what they do won't affect you and your work.

This is one of those "Devil you do & Devil you don't" situations.

...which is similar to a "damned if you do and damned if you dont" situation :-)

...or even the devil and the deep blue sea

If this person is cooking the timesheets, then report them to her/your boss. Anything more is not your job, unless you are her boss.

This colleague who is fiddling timesheets, is she super-awesome at her job?
Lets say I am employed by the hour, and my boss gives me x,y and z tasks to do, which he reckons will take about 40 hours. I finish them in 10 hours, because I am super-awesome, then fill in 20 hours on my timesheet. Everybody's happy. Boss benefits from 40 hours work done in 20 because I am super-awesome, and I benefit by getting 20 hours money for 10 hours work, which is only fair, because I am super-awesome.

Tough spot. Whatever her reason, the worst effect is probably on the moral of people who've noticed. This is the sort of thing that eats at the honest hardworking employees. I mean c'mon your posting about it on your day off. Terrible really.

Anyway, do you have a personal relationship with this person...As part of your decision making process put yourself in her place. Maybe she's not supposed to be working from home but she is as she's got a sick kid or her work load is too high. She could just be thieving because she's afraid of losing her job or maybe she's just the thieving sort. Who knows.

Before taking it to management make sure you have a good handle on the facts and the circumstances from her side as well as yours. And think it through, if they fire her what happens to her post - easy enough to say they hire someone new but are they in a financial position to do so or will your workload increase?

Anyway, your options are:

1. Do nothing
2. Say something to your manager
3. Say something directly to her on your own behalf
4. Say something to her as on "others' behalf
5. Write an anonymous note

Pick the one action you can live with and go from there. My vote is always for being direct but thats the way I can live with myself and I dont work there so its easy enough for me to pick that option on internet paper.

1. Do Nothing: No explanation necessary.

2. Say something to your manager: If you're really pissed/dont want to get involved and just want to kick up to your management, jot a log of when she comes in and out. Its not pleasant but if you get management involved be prepare to back up your accusations, with more than I've noticed this and that...note though, Im not saying to present it to your manager, Im just saying have it in case it gets ugly for you.

3. Say something directly to her on your own behalf: If it were me, Id just say look I've noticed X and you know its a very small office, so if I've noticed others probably have too. You'll have to figure that out for yourself as I'm not speaking for them. I dont want you to lose your job (whatever) so whats going on here? Is there something going on that I can help you with...etc. In my experience, you can be direct and helpful without accusing people of misdeeds and getting others involved.

4. Say something to her as on "others' behalf: I think this approach could work well but I personally would think through getting others involved *in Germany* unless you have their specific approval. Even if you couch it as a warning, "hey just to warn you others are talking about this..." if she mentions it to them and they deny it (for whatever reason), they might resent you for dragging them into it without their knowledge. I find that *some* Germans are hesitant when it comes to workplace onfrontation because their afraid of "mobbing" accusations, which apparently can come with serious consequences in large companies, I dont know about small ones.

If you want to get others involved, maybe you should have a conversation with the people and tell them exactly how you feel, i.e. its a small company and we can't afford this blah blah and that you dont want her to lose her job or get in trouble but you do want her to stop. Ask them for their ideas? You can offer to be the strong man but you need to know you've got their backing in case it gets unpleasant. Strength in numbers and all that.

5. Write an anonymous note: Bah, is all I have to say to this option.

Good luck,
jml

Actually Pol Pot was a cool dude
seriously though, normally I don't post, just read, but today I did have to sign the 'business conduct policy' and actions such as this were specifically mentioned...So thought I would jump off the fence for a change. We are a large (not mega Corp though) US company and i am graded as a 'manager' (there are hundreds of us though so I don't get all hung up on a title) and in theory I could get fired for ignoring that.
Finally, if nothing else the person who is stealing the hours would really piss me off.. why should they get away with it.. it's a liberty!

Given it's a small company, why doesn't your boss notice that she's dishonestly logging work hours?

Cos she might be super-awesome and getting her work done. I've worked with shitloads of people that were always in the office, but sat about reading books, chatting, whatever. They spent more than 40 hours at work, but got nothing done atall. Much better to have somebody super-awesome razzing the books a bit, but performing IMO.

I second Gideon's advice. I would do my job and forget about it or speak to her in private at the very most if it bothers me as much as it seems to be bothering you. There are people who sit at work until 8pm every day, watching TV or reading Bild Zeitung and yet it looks as if they are doing loads of extra hours and the boss thinks "great". If you are growing more and more resentful towards her every day as, well, then you'd better speak to her but only to her. Other than that I actually think it's none of your business what she does.

But as a small company she is being unproductive and costing money... she is taking the piss and in the process the company is suffering, so it is your business

A-so. Assume bad girl costs company €50 per hour (incl. social securty etc). Bad girl steals an hour or two a day. I.e., bad girl steals about €500 per week, i.e. bad girl steals €2000 per month from company. Will that cause said company "suffering"? Or will the damaged working environment cause more suffering should the poster turn to vigilante justice and report her to the boss? That's why I said that she should speak to the woman personally if it has to be.

As somebody else already mentioned, how much time gets lost on writing private emails, going to the toilet 10 times an hour, phoning privately, going for another smoke-break, making holiday arrangements, surfing the internet privately, going for a coffee break.. where do you want to start? As long as said woman finishes her work it's none of the other workers' business. The company will not go broke because of her.

I wanna work for a company that I can steal €2000/month. That'd be ace.

however these people who write down more hours also take breaks, phone privately, go for smokes, surfing etc...
if it annoys you, you should tell her.

Fact, when someone takes the piss it lowers moral generally, with all of the downsides implicated with that.
Fact €2000 a month is, unless my maths really sucks €24k pa... go to a bank and steal €24k, I dare you... see what action they take.
Fact €24k pa is a salary for a junior or apprentice which would be a lot more productive than somone stealing that amount of money
Fact, dependant upon the company, private calls, Internet, coffee breaks, smoking are all (ok mostly) acceptable, stealing is not.
end of story