Posted on 26-Jan-09 by The Timekeeper

From TheDay.com in Connecticut comes the sad story of Lisa E. Bloomer, a (now former) employee of the state Department of Developmental Services. According to the story, a few years ago, Lisa’s (now former) boss invited her to a local casino.

Apparently, Lisa got hooked on gambling. A criminal investigation has revealed that she allegedly was paid nearly $210,000 over the course of three years (2005 through 2007) for time she claimed to have been working (but wasn’t) — money the state claims was spent on gambling at the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos.

Other DDS employees claim she filled out her timesheets to indicate she worked overtime shifts when she wasn’t actually there. Detective Christopher Greer of the Connecticut state police Eastern District Major Crime Squad compared her timesheets to the player attendance records from the two casinos and discovered many occasions where her timesheet said she was at work, but the player record revealed she was actually at the casino.

Lisa was allowed to resign in lieu of termination, and now faces criminal charges. Her boss, Alisa Bobinski, was fired for “dereliction of duty.” Very sad for everyone involved.

And the really sad part is — all this could have been prevented with the use of an automated time and attendance system. Particularly a biometric system, which pretty much requires the employee to be physically present in order to clock in or out.

Okay, I agree, most small businesses aren’t going to get hit up to this extent. This lady was walking away with nearly $70,000 in additional pay every year. I think for a lot of small businesses, they’d notice something amiss long before it got to that point. At least, I hope so.

But that’s not to say there’s no “time theft” going on at all. See, when you rely on hand-written timesheets to track your employees’ time, the temptation is strong for employees to simply write down their normal start time as their time of arrival (even though they were five, maybe ten minutes late) and their normal end time as their time of departure (even though they slipped out a few minutes early to beat the traffic on their way home). If there’s no tracking of when employees go to lunch and when they return, who’s to know if they and their friends linger over their after-lunch conversation, or if they take a few extra minutes to do some shopping on their way back to the office?

Over time, those minutes add up. Somebody arriving a few minutes late or leaving a few minutes early, maybe taking an extra couple of minutes for lunch every day, would likely not be noticed — especially if the “official” timesheets showed the normal and expected work times… but over the course of a year, those extra few minutes a day could add up to over two weeks of time you’ve paid for, but your employee wasn’t working.

And you know? These numbers aren’t too far off from what studies show really happens out there “in the field.” And with time and attendance software being available for less than $100, with biometric-based systems for less than $600, it really doesn’t take long to get payback on a more robust time tracking system.

So, no more excuses. What kind of time-tracking system does your business use now? Would you know if your employees were claiming work time when they weren’t actually in the building? Do you have a lot of spare money lying around to pay folks for time they aren’t really working? Think maybe at least taking a look at a more “formal” time and attendance tracking system might be in order?

Related Posts

• The Importance of Keeping Time
• You Pay, One Way or the Other
• It Only Works If You Use It
• Disciplinary Action

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