How Can We Manage Employee Breaks Without a Security Guard in a Small Office?

Hi everyone,

First of all, thank you for viewing this question. I have a question that requires your suggestions urgently. In my office, employees are going outside during working hours for various purposes such as smoking, personal errands, or buying snacks. How can we prevent them from doing so, especially since we do not have a security guard in our corporate office where there are hardly 30 employees? I am in the HR Executive position.

Thank you.

There are a few things that need clarification. If it's a corporate office, there is no security guard as such. Nevertheless, for an office where 30 employees work, whether it's a corporate office or not, you need to have a security office.

Secondly, a few employees leave the office premises during working hours. This fact is observed by the HR Executive, so why is it not observed by seniors? Does the MD also have his office on the same premises?

Thirdly, employees who work in corporate offices are burdened with a lot of work. Most of them are decision-makers and may work long hours. Therefore, it's important to check their attendance records. What time do they arrive, and what time do they leave? Their justification could be that they work long hours, so some breaks are inevitable.

Fourthly, do you have specified lunch and tea break times? In a corporate office, this can be challenging to implement, but we still need information on this as well.

Lastly, as Mr. Nathrao has pointed out, have you discussed this matter with your senior? To whom do you report? If you report to the GM (HR) or HR Manager, what are their views?

There are many issues associated with your post.

Thanks,

Regards,
Dinesh Divekar
[Phone Number Removed For Privacy Reasons]

Introducing a Movement Register

Introduce and maintain a movement register and ask employees to enter their details in the register before moving out of the office. The details such as the name of the employee, employee number, time out, time in, reasons for leaving or taking a break, etc., should be noted down and signed by the employee. This register should be reviewed periodically, and the employee concerned should be informed of their breaks during such periods like a week, fortnight, month, etc. Initially, the practice may be initiated informally, and later it may be formalized as a policy or rule and recorded in the personnel records.

First of all, thank you for your reply and suggestions. I asked this question for certain reasons:

1. I am sitting in the corporate office where every employee is a divisional head. Even though I am directly reporting to the MD, they have asked me how we can accurately track/stop these things.
2. Yes, we do have security, but in all our factories, not in this office.
3. Yes, we do have a lunch break, but we are not providing tea breaks for certain reasons. Some of our employees are from different locations, so they leave early to catch the train. I suggested/discussed that we can give tea breaks to stop this, but our heads are not interested because it would reduce working time.
4. We have a list of policies, including the working hours policy which everyone must strictly follow. However, for me, it's hard to track if someone is going outside for personal work. We all have separate divisions, so the heads are not aware of whether someone is outside or inside unless they call on the landline. I shall implement, as per your suggestions, a movement register so that we can track them. Thank you for that.
5. Sometimes, I face problems where someone says they are going for company work, and I need to cross-check with the heads or MD. This disrupts the environment. I handle the entire HR department, which includes 8 companies and 3 different factory locations. It's hard to spend time on these things, but our MD has asked me how to stop or prevent that. That's why I posted this question. Thank you for your suggestions.

Please let me know if you need any more information.