Wasting Time or Stealing Money?

As an employee you seldom stop to think about the investment your employer has made when you are hired. You have agreed to fill a position; you have interviewed and sold your future employer on your ability. The requirements met and background check passed you are ready to be hired. Already you are costing the potential employer money.

You and the employer have agreed to the number of hours you will work and the amount of compensation you will receive for the work you will be doing.

There is lost time usually from a learning curve, another employee is required to help train you and this represents a cost to the employer. It is an investment in the new employee as well.

Suppose your job has some slow time, suppose you are free to visit, make phone calls and generally goof off and you start doing it a little at first. The slacking off increases to the point that although you do some work, you’re actually not working more often than not. You are now a liability not an asset to the employer.

Now you are distracting other employees. You are setting a bad example for new hires. You are letting personal matters and personal phone calls keep you from focusing on your job. What are you really doing in this situation? Aren’t you stealing from your employer? Accepting a paycheck for hours you did not work, you have lied on your time card and you feel it is okay? Is this ethical?

If you ran a business could you afford to pay people to be idle and just killing time to get a check? What would happen to the productivity of your business? Is expecting others to do their job as they agreed when they were hired an unfair expectation? How long can a business survive with a staff of slackers?

Do the math! At only $7 per hour and an average of 1 hour a day of wasted time and loss of productivity the cost per week is $35 multiply this by an average of 50 weeks (not 52 weeks due to vacation & holidays) the total annual loss is $1750 per year, now if you have 75 employees and only 1% are goofing off then you are still out annually over $10,000 a year. Do you think that is going to have an impact on the company? Not only is it bad news for the bottom line, you are also hurting the productivity of others down the line. It costs more as products aren’t delivered on time, or orders are messed up, it takes a toll on customer service and on down the line.

Can you imagine how much loss there is when employees getting paid more than $7 per hour do the same thing! It is a costly problem for everyone. If one person out of 10 wastes time it costs thousands per year for the employer!

How to fix the problem; work for the employer not yourself on the job. Be punctual, be proactive and look for ways to help yourself and others. Set an example for others by being the best you can be and don’t make excuses. You asked for the job, if it doesn’t suit you and you don’t want to do the grunge work associated with your position perhaps you need to rethink whether this is the right job for you!