Time Management Practises

Clocking Out for Breaks and Meals

The cost of time in your business is vast. There might be fifty plus people to manage and coordinate and each of them is a little cash register that is paying money out of your system by the second. 

Your systems and procedures have to accommodate these seconds that are ticking away and making your wallet thinner by the second. 

Step one is that you want to pay people what they are supposed to receive for work delivered, and in some instances, there will be the employees that are deserving of excellent service rendered to the company that will deserve their bonus or incentive. 

This is however where the flipside of the coin comes into play and this is for the employees that do not always act according to the playbook or the rules and these are the employees that cause us the need to implement rock-solid systems and procedures to control the timekeeping and reward of each employee.

• The habit of clockings has to be enforced with disciplinary measures
• Taking of company time is also called theft like anything else that you take that does not belong to you or you do not have the permission to take
• Stealing time is dealt with as any normal theft disciplinary
• Little breaks for short times add up, every drop eventually fills or overflows the bucket
• Smoking breaks all add up eventually
• Meals are important do not skip meals you need the energy and fuel
• Coming a little late or leaving a little early adds up
• The above habits add up to hours per month and days per year extremely quickly
• The rule of good measure is 15 min early for your shift
• If you want to eat before your shift, arrive 30 min early for your shift
• It is important to energise before the commencement of your shift
• If you have to take breaks during shifts you will just lose valuable time
• Check all clocking daily, per shift
• Consider breaks and be reasonable
• Health and safety come first
• Know who is clocked in at all times
• Prevent unauthorised overtime
• Nobody should clock in or out for someone else ever
• Check and record tardiness regarding clocking on staff files
• Termination of employees clocking for each other – zero-tolerance rule

“Taking of company time is also called theft like anything else that you take that does not belong to you”

Propper shift planning prevents poor attendance and will assist you to manage your wages budgets to such an extent that you do not receive nasty and unexpected over expenditures. 

This will also enable your staff to plan their personal budgets in advance and help them remain focused on the job expectations as they will not have personal financial unknown stresses to deal with while on shift.