What is buddy punching and how to prevent it?
What is Buddy Punching?
Buddy punching, probably not what you think it is as it has nothing to do with throwing punches. Buddy punching occurs when an employee clocks in on behalf of another employee. This tends to happen when employee #1 because he/she is running late, asks employee #2 to clock in for them in hopes that their manager doesn’t notice the late arrival of employee A.
Tersely put, buddy punching is time theft as employees use it to trick their employers in to paying them more. This can have huge consequences on businesses with tight budgets. In fact, a nationwide survey shows that 16% of hourly employees admitted to punching in on behalf of other employees. The same survey showed that the most common mistake people make when estimating time is to add an extra 15 minutes. So if 16% of your employees are adding on average 15 minutes of extra time, a business owner could potentially be paying for an invisible employee!
How Can I Stop Buddy Punching?
There are several different ways that you can stop buddy punching.
- Using an employee gps time clock app or gps enabled time tracking software. This is the best and easiest solution to stopping buddy punching. It is less expensive and easier to maintain than other solutions. This kind of software is easily accessible on mobile devices hence you can be assured that when employees clock in, they are really where they are expected to clock in. Also you can easily see which employees are clocked in and where they clocked in or out.
- Biometric time clock solutions allows employees to clock in using voice, fingerprint, facial or retina scan. Biometric solutions tend to be very expensive and even worse, very glitchy. The system expects an employee’s face or fingers to be clean, making it very inconvenient especially in the construction industry.
- Geofencing – a geofence is a virtual geographic area or territory where employees can clock in. Your employees cannot clock in or out if he/she is outside of the geofence. In some systems, the geofence may automatically clock employees in or out, which may not necessarily be the desired behavior. Geofencing hardware and software requires expensive maintenance and upkeep. It does not serve well industries where employees are constantly switching sites or working on multiple sites. This is because the geofence boundaries have to be constantly reconfigured. Geofencing is also a big drain on batteries as your smartphone or device is constantly using your GPS to determine your location.
What is the Best Alternative?
Easy, it’s a GPS time tracking software. There are several time tracking software out there but not many are built specifically to meet the needs of construction employees and managers. Timeero, a GPS time tracking app solves that problem. Your employees can clock in and have their GPS location and time recorded. This way you are rest assured your employees are clocked in and they are really where they said they are. You can start your free trial today and start saving money.