3+ Work Hours and Reporting Policy
Every business has a set work schedule wherein they require their employees to come in and leave the office place at set times. However, they still have to make sure that their employees understand the number of work hours they should put in to ensure that there is productivity within the office place.
Also, they need to set up rules that will make sure their employees won’t leave before the end of their shift and so that they’ll properly report samples that they have come into to the office. So to help with all this, one can create a work hour and reporting policy and this article is going to focus on helping you do that.
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Work Hours and Reporting Policy Template
Restaurant Work Hours and Reporting Policy Template
Overtime and Time Keeping Policy
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Timekeeping Policy Template Sample
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What Your Work Hours and Reporting Policy Should Contain
As already mentioned, the point of having this particular type of policy is to ensure that your employees actually put in the time to do actual work in the office, while at the same time reporting that they actually did come in to do work for you and your company. If you’re planning to create the work hours and reporting policy for your company, then be sure that it contains the following:
Responsibilities
All of your employees have a responsibility to do time reporting and follow the work schedule of your company. Although every employee has to generally follow whatever is written in this particular policy, all of them have their own responsibilities to follow. So those would be the following:
Every employee is to
- Maintain an accurate daily record on his or her time record on the number of hours that he/she has worked for the company. If the employee has incurred any number of absences, then it is his/her responsibility to place those absences on his/her record. Entries must be made daily so that managers and supervisors will have an easier time in keeping track of the attendance of every single employee. Remember that whenever you come into the office, just make sure that you’re able to place into the entry log that you have arrived before you start working. If you don’t, then there will be serious consequences which will involve your attendance, and it’s never any fun whenever you have to explain the days you were marked as inactive in the office even though you were actually working on those days.
- All employees must be approved of overtime as well as any premium made pay adjustments before they can be recorded. Meaning that every employee will not be paid for overtime should management not be informed or if they decide to do it even though they have not been cleared to work overtime. So all you have to do is inform your supervisor or direct manager that you plan on working overtime for your the business before actually doing it. Also, try to go over the overtime policy of your company to see if you can actually work overtime. Just follow the rules that your company has set and you shouldn’t have any problems.
- Sign and submit the completed time record in the format required (whether that’s in an electronic format or one in paper) to the manager in the time period required for approval. Basically, you want to sign or log in to your workplace so that your manager will be able to see that you’re actually there at work at the time that you’re supposed to be.
Every manager is responsible for
- Ensuring that employees reporting to him or her have the correct project/departmental codes, overtime or premium codes and overhead codes for their assignments. If the employees don’t have the right codes or the right approval from something as simple as working overtime, then managers won’t allow them to work on it.
- Ensuring that every single employee maintain accurate record times. Managers expect that their employees to write down the actual time that they arrived for work and the time that they leave. So let’s say that you’re a manager and you see that an employee has written down his/her time in the time reporting sheet, but it’s an hour earlier than when he/she has actually arrived. Something like this should not be ignored and it is your responsibility to confront the employee to rectify the situation. The kind of disciplinary action you will take will depend entirely on the attendance policy as well as any other company policy that should help in the event of this kind of situation happening.
- Providing approval for any overtime or premium pay. The reason as to why a lot of employees want to work overtime is because they know that it means more money in their pockets in exchange for just spending more hours in the workplace. While it’s something that a lot of people can do, every single employee can’t just do overtime (that’s unless the company allows them to do so). So if you’re the manager, then it’s your responsibility to either approve or disapprove an employee from working overtime and gaining premium pay. Remember that there is an overtime policy that you can always go to if ever you’re having trouble in whether you should approve an employee for overtime or not.
- Approving time records and submitting them to payroll. Remember that it is your responsibility to make sure that employees place in the time that they actually came into the office to maintain an accurate time record, and it’s also your responsibility to approve the time that they’ve placed in the records and submit it all to payroll once it’s all said and done. Once again, if you see that there’s a problem in the employee’s time records such as the time being a couple of minutes or even hours early, then you’ll have to solve the issue as soon as you can so that you can submit the time record to payroll without any problems. Because if you just approve an employee’s time without even checking as to whether or not he/she actually came into the office at the time he/she is supposed to, then it could lead to some serious problems for you, the employee, and the company in the near future.
Enforcement
Let’s say that an employee happens to break the rules set out for this policy.; obviously you won’t just be able to let it slide. So what you’re going to have to do is to perform the necessary disciplinary action with the approval of the offender’s manager and any other person who is authorized to handle this kind of situation. So here is a list of disciplinary actions one can take if an employee happens to break this company policy.
For first time offenders
- The offender will be counseled to ensure that he/she fully understands about the importance time reporting. This isn’t the harshest of punishments as what you’re doing is just reminding the employee that he/she must always remember that company has rules in regards to keeping track of everyone’s time records and that every single employee has to follow them. So long as the employee understands that, then you can move on to the next phase.
- The offender will be advised about the consequences of further infractions. This is basically a warning to the employee wherein if the employee commits another violation, further action will be taken to make sure that the employee does not do commit any offenses again. So this can be anything from a warning letter all the way to employee termination should it be required.
- Will be provided with a copy of the policy as well as be made to sign an acknowledgement letter stating that the offender has read and understood the policy.
Second time offenders will be
- Will receive a written warning that will also be placed under their personnel file. The written will basically state that the employee has committed yet another infraction even after he/she has already signed an acknowledgement letter stating that he/she has understood the policy. This is not something that you want to receive as it’s one step closer to getting that second warning letter and possibly even termination.
- Be subject to spot checks by their managers during the 30-day period following the infraction. This is so that managers can make sure that these employees will come into work on time after being given the written warning. This will ensure that they keep a close eye on the offenders so that they can see if they will no longer commit any infractions.
- Will be required to attend the next scheduled training session that will teach them all about time record keeping and its importance. Yet again, another precaution to make sure that the employee finally understands the contents of the policy and so that he/she will no longer violate it.
Third time offenders will be notified that they will have to meet with their managers wherein they will discuss the infraction and that it will be brought up during the next performance evaluation. Also, the employees will receive a second written warning that will be placed under their personnel file.
Fourth-time offenders will have their case presented by their managers to the disciplinary review committee where the offense will be reviewed and the consequence will be determined. This could mean that the employee may be terminated.
If you would like to learn more on how to create this particular type of policy or anything related to it, then all you have to do is go through our site, find the articles that have the information that you need, and make use of whatever information you have been able to gather to help you out.