Clock Yourself In

So Monday morning, I show up at 7:00 which is when the plant is supposed to start working. I realize that two of my employees are unaccounted for. I don't have any messages on my phone. After about 20 minutes, I see the employees walk in to the plant out of my office window overlooking the production floor. Monday mornings I work on the payroll from the week before by reviewing all employee's punches in the time clock. This is all done on my computer since the clock is networked to my PC.

I'm curious what the punches look like for this morning for the two guys who walked in 20 minutes after start time. Hmmm, that's odd, one guy punched in at 6:58 and the other at 7:19. So I call in Employee A and ask him if he had just arrived at about 7:20. He said that he did just get there, he was late because he was stuck behind a train crossing. It's a pretty likely story considering our industrial park is surrounded on all sides by train tracks and the construction of a local suspension bridge has closed a number of the main entrances to the park.

I ask him how it could be that he punched in at 6:58 when he didn't arrive until 7:20. His response was that someone else must have accidentally clocked him in. To me this is very unlikely an accident since each of my 12 employees has their own card clearly marked with their name in large font hanging next to the clock. I also checked to see that everyone had clocked themselves in, so obviously someone clocked in twice with two different cards.

Then I ask him why he didn't clock in at 7:20 when he arrived. His answer was that he thought he did clock in. Again, this is very unlikely because there was nothing reported in the system. It's also very obvious to know when the card reader has been successfully punched because there is a loud beep and a voice says "thank you". So that sort of rules out that excuse.

In the employee handbook it says that falsification of company or personnel records results in termination upon the first offense. It's suggested to me that he be let go with a warning. I'm fine with this plan because it was originally suggested that we do nothing about it because there was not enough proof. If I have any say about how I run my plant, this will not get swept under the carpet. I've been with this company long enough to see all the shit that gets swept under the carpet and I'm not going to let that happen under my management.

So we had a meeting with Employee A about what was observed that day. He continued to deny any knowledge of someone punching him in and maintained that he did punch in when he arrived at 7:20. He got off with a warning this time. It was probably one of the most uncomfortable situations I've ever been in, but afterwards it felt great that I was finally making progress towards running a plant I can put my name on and be proud of.

What happens next is that Employee A will go out and tell everyone else out there how big of a load of shit it was that he was sat down and scolded for having someone else clock him in. Everyone will side with him even though they too know that he had someone clock him in. Nobody out there takes any responsibility for their actions. If they get in trouble, they blame whoever they can that caused them to get in trouble instead of realizing that they were at fault and they just shouldn't have done whatever it is they did.

Seriously, do I really need to have a meeting with all of my employees telling them that clocking in other people is wrong? How is this possibly something that is not just common knowledge for a bunch of adults?