Companies Fret About Time Theft – But Who’s Taking From Whom?

Ever run a personal errand when you were on the clock at work?

Or perhaps you spent too many on-the-job hours shopping on Amazon, checking the latest posts on Facebook, or working a side gig that supplements your income.

Employers view this as “time theft,” and it’s becoming a serious concern for many of them, especially since remote work makes it difficult to keep a close eye on what workers are doing. As employers figure out how to bring time theft under control, software tracking systems have even sprung up to help.

But time theft can work both ways.

Just as an employee can steal time from the company by taking longer-than-allowed breaks or fudging information on a timecard, the company can steal time from workers. This often is done by asking them to do additional work beyond their normal hours without paying them for it. It can also be done by having them attend required training sessions that are also unpaid and outside of normal work hours.

And, unfortunately, this kind of time theft more often affects marginalized people who are asked to go the extra mile and work harder than others to be considered for advancement opportunities.

Management’s Monumental Mistake

That may be disappointing to learn, but it should not be surprising. Historically, people of color, gender minorities, and people with disabilities have been expected to work twice as hard as the dominant group even if they’re exhausted, burnt out, and battling daily microaggressions. Even then, their work can often be overlooked and undervalued.

Companies that put employees into situations where they are expected to do extra work and put in extra hours may think they are, wisely, getting the most out of their people. But in truth they are making a monumental mistake that may just come back to haunt them and to undermine the bottom line.

Why is that?

Because the notion that some employees need to be workhorses at the expense of their physical, mental, and financial wellbeing is harmful to leadership, other employees, and the workplace as a whole. As time passes, these workers grow weary of their work time encroaching so insidiously on their personal time. They become less willing to go the extra mile for leadership, who they may now view as unconcerned and incompassionate. They lose their desire to shine and they focus on self-preservation instead. Suddenly, an excellent employee the company could count on becomes disenchanted; someone who feels overburdened and under appreciated – because they are.

In other words, by pushing these workers more, management ends up getting less.

Sure, many businesses prefer to hire ambitious people who can work 12 hours a day without complaint. But not every person – not even every employee who managers consider an A-player – can work endless hours without burning out.

Time Theft Victim – Or Perpetrator?

People have lives outside their work. They have families and friends, and things they need to attend to without worrying that they will be seen as shirking their duties if they don’t remain at their work station – or in front of their laptop at home – long after the work day is over.

Workers shouldn’t feel that their private time can be snatched from them at a moment’s notice for questionable reasons, and that if they balk at putting in those additional hours their chances of advancing in the organization will be compromised.

This is where employers need to take a good long look at themselves; engage in a little introspection, as it were.

Are you as a CEO or manager worried about being a victim of time theft, when in fact you may be a perpetrator?

Are you placing unreasonable workloads on your teams, knowing that the only way to accomplish the tasks will be to work longer than normal hours? Are you failing to respect the boundaries between personal time and work time? And are you doing these things more often with marginalized groups?

If so, a reckoning is due.

It’s time to end the time theft on leadership’s side; to get back to valuing what each employee brings to the organization and – just as importantly – valuing them as people.