'HR didn't want to have an awkward conversation': One employee's bad habit causes human resources to create brand new rule

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
May 24, 2024 3:00 PM EDT

One employee's bad habit was starting to impact everyone at the company. 

There are two types of workplaces: the kind that punish you severely for being even a minute late, and the kind where people routinely stroll in 20 minutes late without a care in the world. Lots of places that are strict about tardiness are retail places or other places that do shift work. Meanwhile, lots of offices allow their salaried employees to come and go as they please, so long as they're getting their work done. Working at the second type of office is much more pleasant, naturally. Having to count every single minute of your workday takes a psychological toll… and it makes employees want to work just until their shift is over. Then they're heading home to forget about the work until the next day. Salaried workers don't always have that ability, but it's a give and take. 

At u/Magnus_40's place of business, they did, unfortunately, have to deal with the shift work, down-to-the-minute kind of clock-in system. And they noticed that their coworker was clocked in, but just not really working for a big portion of the workday. Check out the full story below. 

After that, this manager at a trucking company was stunned that due to a flat tire, his worker had been sitting idle for a total of 60 hours. 

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    Cheezburger Image 9926825728
    via Dylan Gillis on Unsplash
  • 02
    HR didn't want to have an awkward conversation with a couple of people so we all get extra days off.
    via u/Magnus_40
  • 03
    The company I worked for had a quite old-fashioned attitude to the workplace. The workforce was divided into 'boiler suits' and 'suits' or 'workshops' and 'office'
    via u/Magnus_40
  • 04
    They regarded office as educated, professional and honest and workshop as stupid, half-assed and petty thieves. This was not a view I agreed with, I had come from a company where everyone from janitor to general manager were treated the same and could have an
    via u/Magnus_40
  • 05
    input; if something went wrong in design or manufacturing it was often the guy working the machine or fitted the parts who spotted it and came up with the correction. In my new place the office would not accept input from workshop unless they really really had to.
    via u/Magnus_40
  • 06
    Workshop had to clock and account for every minute whereas office were on the honour system, we were trusted to input our own hours and we usually just entered our 8 hours per day despite usually working more, sometimes a lot more because we were professional in
    via u/Magnus_40
  • 07
    our work ethic. In my old place everyone clocked, it was no big deal but suggesting that it happen here was like suggesting that office workers were untrustworthy. Then there was Bob. Bob turned up about 8:30 and left about 3:30 and somehow still managed tp log 8 hours per day. We had a
    via u/Magnus_40
  • 08
    half-hour lunch break (we could extend it but had to log it and work the time back) he took long lunches of about an hour or so. He was also a heavy smoker and about 3 to 4 times an hour Bob would pop outside for a smoke.
    via u/Magnus_40
  • 09
    Everyone knew about Bob including HR. We knew that Bob was on a shaky peg for a while because his working hours were getting shorter and shorter while still being charged at 8 hours. Something had to give.
    via u/Magnus_40
  • 10
    HR had an easy job; have a word with Bob and get him to work the hours he claimed, put him on an RA (Remedial Action plan) or else fire him for mis-accounting hours.
    via u/Magnus_40
  • 11
    Instead HR decided to instigate a new policy that everyone on site would clock and would have to account for their hours on site. At no point did HR actually talk to anyone in the office, they just seemed to come up with this plan based on what they think went on.
    via u/Magnus_40
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    Engineering were generally happy with this although a few did grumble about honour and trust. HR just shrugged their shoulders and shifted the blame on to the European Working Time Directive and said that it was the new normal, nothing we can do... honest. You don't engineers because we like rules
    via u/Magnus_40
  • 13
    and sure enough some of the engineering team researched it and found out that HR were just using EU law to railroad through a new process. We did need to record worked hours but nowhere did it say we had to use an electronic clocking system to do it. The old system fullfilled the requirement of the law just fine.
    via u/Magnus_40
  • 14
    The new clocking machines were fitted in every entrance to the office block, we were all given swipe cards and training on using the new system. We could have pointed it out to HR and indeed some people tried but the decision had already been made and they pushed ahead with it. We all knew what was coming and we continued on as normal waiting for the end of the month.
    via u/Magnus_40
  • 15
    At the end of the month the project billing controllers went nuts. While one or two people were genuinely stealing time from the company the rest of us were under-accounting for our time. Engineering were on a flexible working day, as long as we did core hours and did our 8 hours then we were OK, anything over 8
    via u/Magnus_40
  • 16
    hours was banked and at the end of the month was either paid as over time or flexi time. I nominally started at 7am but I was usually in by 6:40 and we worked to the job so I could leave at 3:30 but it was often closer to 4. Most of us were the same but we usually just rounded to an 8 hour day.
    via u/Magnus_40
  • 17
    Suddenly the projects lost 3-4 hours of free overtime per person per week with an office of around 300 people that is a hit-load of time and that had to be paid as OT or banked as flexi as per our contract. One or two managers suggested the we just adjust our time to the previous hours but
    via u/Magnus_40
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    falsifying clocking hours was gross misconduct and a sackable offence so they went back in their box pretty quickly. HR told it to log our time accurately and so we did.
    via u/Magnus_40
  • 19
    HR refused to back down because "EU law" which we knew that this was rubbish and so the productivity figures went down, in some cases by over 10%, costs went up as we had to be credited with all the extra time and so we all got at least a flexi-day per month that we never had before.
    via u/Magnus_40
  • 20
    Thanks HR. All you needed to do was to have a word with Smoky Bob and his like and all would be well but because you wanted to avoid an awkward conversation we all get extra holidays. WOOHOO.
    via u/Magnus_40
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    EDITA few questions on why we didn't log the whole hours. To be honest I don't know, it was the culture in my new place and I just adopted it. Stupid probably but I was the new start and you don't really want to rock the boat in the early days as you are first out and I could be out without any reason in the first few month. In my previous place we clocked so I had no problem with the change.
    via u/Magnus_40
  • 22
    The culture of a place and the fine detail is something that is hard to find out during the application and interview process.
    via u/Magnus_40
  • 23
    EDIT 2 a few questions arrived on why this was Malicious Compliance. The people who worked in the system could see this coming. HR introduced rules with no consultation (the place was very much 'rules from above' and management by diktat and no cooperative management). We
    via u/Magnus_40
  • 24
    saw it coming and just let it happen. Some people actually tried to tell HR but they ploughed on regardless. So we complied with the rules knowing that we would gain out of it.
    via u/Magnus_40
  • 25
    The Rules from above with no consultation happen quite often and ended up in costly rework/roll back of rules
    via u/Magnus_40
  • 26
    Zombie-Giraffe Why would you log less. hours than you actually worked in the first place? I am in engineering myself and while I like my employer and will not log every single minute, I am sure as not giving away 3-4 hours/week of my time for free.
    via u/Zombie-Giraffe
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    Zombie-Giraffe How are the HR people the bad guys in this situation? They created a more equal workplace and madesure that you actually get paid for your time.
    via u/Zombie-Giraffe
  • 28
    Chris-P It really disgusts me that we still live in a culture where it's considered "normal" and "professional" to work unpaid overtime, but as soon as somebody gets overpaid for their time, that's a big problem that needs investigating.
    via u/Chris-P
  • 29
    I have no intention of ever letting any company expect more work out of me than they pay for. My time has value
    via u/Chris-P

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