Loitering by Employees

Hi

Recently a lot of the employees have been loitering around in the Company.
Actually one of the HR herself is most of the time chit chatting outside which only emboldens the new employees to do the same. what should be the steps taken to prevent this as we don't want to confront that HR coz she performs, however, this is a concern as other employees are following her footsteps and not focusing on productivity

Please suggest me what to do?


Thanks

Samiksha

Hi Samiksha,

We had faced this problem earlier in our own organisation, a few steps that we took were

1- If the employees seem to be taking too many frequent breaks for their pleasure walks or for a smoke outside the company- We introduced a In-Out register so an employee was forced to sign out if her stepped out of the company and it was clearly informed to the employees that this register is being monitored to record per day productive working hrs put in by the employee.

2- If they seem to be unnecessarily chatting up with their colleagues for long hours around the workstation - The immediate supervisors can be made responsible for maintaining a little discpline, if an 'A'employee seems to be wasting too much time just chatting up, he can be politely counselled by his supervisor better still, he can be assigned additional tasks thru the day(since he is not sufficiently loaded with work and hence too much spare time in hand).

3- Generally IT companies have a Swipe Card system at the main entrance of the office, we had additional such systems installed on the exit door of such project teams as well, hence the employees were forced to swipe their cards thereby recording their break time.

4- As regards the HR Proffesional, you have already mentioned that she is a good performer, in that case she should be taken into confidence by her own supervisor and made responsible for tackiling this issue of other employees loitering around in the company premises, automatically she will be forced to set an example herself :-) if she needs to counsel other employees.

Please do remember that these measures are only last resorts, generally they revolt to such measures and are very unhappy, these measures are not meant to harass employees, we must understand we are dealing with mature individuals, there could be other underlying reasons for this kind of behaviour in the company for eg, are you providing sufficient platforms for the employees to interact with each other or work as teams ?, you could possibly have a small meeting with a couple of people and try to understand the real reasons. Lastly if the employee productivity has not declined they seem to be performing well, and completing their work on time a few such breaks are not very harmful .

hope this helps

regards
Preeti

Hey

Thanks a Lot Preeti

Samiksha

Hello Samiksha,

I understand your point but as HR professional we must understand the fundamental activities and time constitutes as compensable to the employes. There are standard defined norms for each of the activities for which employees are compensated or not compensated:

The following list will be useful:


What time must employees be paid for? Use the chart below for a quick reference.

Time spent during working hours
Compensable:

• Coffee and snack breaks
• Fire drills
• Grievance adjustment during time employee is required to be on premises
• Meal periods if employees are not relieved of duties, if not free to leave posts or if too short to be useful (less than 1/2 hour)
• Meal periods of 24-hour on-call employees
• Medical attention on plant premises or if employer directs outside treatment
• Meetings to discuss daily operations problems
• Rest periods of 20 minutes or less
• Retail sales product meetings sponsored by employer
• Show-up time if employees are required to remain on premises before being sent home
• Sleeping time if tour of duty is less than 24 hours
• Stand-by time-remaining at post during lunch period or temporary shut down
• Suggestion systems
• Walking to the production area after donning required work gear
• Travel:

o from job site to job site
o from work site to outlying job
o to customers
o from preliminary instructional meeting to work site

• Waiting

o by homeworker to deliver or obtain work
o by truck driver standing guard while loading
o for work after reporting at a required time
o while on duty
o to take off protective work gear at the end of the day
Non-compensable:

• Absence for illness, holiday or vacation
• Meal periods of 1/2 hour or longer if relieved of all duties and free to leave post (but can be confined to plant premises)
• Medical attention by employee choice of outside doctor
• Shutdown for regular maintenance
• Sleeping time up to eight hours if tour of duty is 24 hours or longer, if agreement to exclude sleep time exists, facilities for sleeping are furnished, at least five hours of sleep are possible during scheduled period, and interruptions to perform duties are counted as hours worked
• Union meetings concerning solely internal union affairs
• Voting time (unless required by state law)
• Waiting after relieved of duty for a specified period of time that allows employee to engage in personal activity

Time spent before, after, or between regular work hours

• Compensable:
• Arranging or putting merchandise away
• Bank employees waiting for audit to finish
• Changing clothes, showering or washing if required by the nature of the work (such as job with chemicals requires bathing for worker health)
• Changing clothes, showering or washing if required by the nature of the work (such as job with chemicals requires bathing for worker health)
• Clearing cash register or totaling receipts
• Discussing work problems at shift change
• Distributing work to work benches
• Equipment maintenance before or after shift
• Getting steam up in plant
• Homework under contract with employer
• Make-ready work, preparatory work necessary for principal activity
• On-call time if employee must stay on or near premises so as to have liberty restricted or not use time as pleases
• Photography and fingerprinting for identification purposes
• Physical exam required for continued service
• Suggestions developed pursuant to assignment
• Travel time to customer on after-hour emergency

Non-compensable:

• Changing clothes, washing or showering for employees' convenience
• Homework of which the employer has no knowledge
• Meal periods while on out-of-town business
• Medical attention by company doctor even if injury was at work
• Obtaining equipment from lockers where lockers are not recommended or required
• On-call time when only telephone number to be reached or other similar contact device is required so that employee can come and go as pleases
• Opening plant and turning on lights and heat
• Preemployment tests
• Retail sales meeting sponsored by manufacturer if attendance voluntary
• Reporting early to promptly relieve prior shift
• Time between whistle and start of work
• Trade school attendance
• Training programs sponsored by employer if outside regular work hours, attendance is voluntary, employee does no productive work while attending and program is not directly related to employee's present job (as distinguished from teaching another job or additional skill)
• Travel time:

o from home to work site or vice versa (even if employer provides transportation)
o from plant entrance to work site
o from time clock to work site
o to and from dressing room
o from outlying job to home

• Unauthorized overtime if prohibited and without employer's knowledge
• Voluntary attendance at government- sponsored safety meetings
• Voluntary attendance at industry meeting to keep abreast of technological change
• Waiting:

o for paycheck
o at time clock
o to start work at designated time after arriving early
o to put on first piece of required protective equipment prior to the start of the workday

Regards,

Sawant