5 Cash-Sucking Employee Problems Solved

One of the biggest expenses in most businesses is the labor to keep the business moving, so it follows that one of the areas of expenditure with the biggest potential for unplanned (and unnecessary!) blowouts is also the labor force. There are a huge variety of ways in which your employees can actually be cash-suckers, rather than profit makers. Today we look at 5 of the most common cash-sucking employee problems, and how technology and policies like time attendance tracking can solve them.

1. My employees get very little done in a shift

Employee productivity is a complex web of many different factors. Fortunately, motivation very rarely comes directly from being paid more money; unless you are paying your employees far less that they are worth, it is unlikely that you need to pay them more to motivate them. Far better is to offer recognition for a job well done - this will move slowly at first, but will pick up momentum as people starting working better and being recognized more.

2. I'm sure that time-card padding is rife in my company - how can I stop it?

Time attendance tracking with an employee telephone time clock is a fast, simple way to eliminate time card padding. These systems can also automatically calculate employee hours and overtime, and you can check on the status of your employees by phone at any stage of the day.

3. My worker's comp costs are really eating into the budget

No worker wants to be injured - our base instincts simply don't allow us to deliberately seriously hurt ourselves, simply because somebody else will pay for it. So the key is actually reducing the risk of injury; there is an entire field of research in this area to advise you!

4. It seems that my employees have a culture of using up sick days whether they need them or not.

One fast, simple way to dis-incentivize this is to offer a reward of a half-day pay, per sick day left at the end of the fiscal year. You can also require a medical certificate for any sick days used that people are paid for. If people persist in using up all their sick days, consider moving the worst offenders to a casual employment basis.

5. An employee has constant medical problems that force her to take her entire sick leave, carer's leave and stress leave requirements, as well as unpaid leave.

This can be a massive burden on a company, even if the leave is technically due to every employee anyway. Make sure you enforce the need for a medical certificate for any paid leave, and consider instituting a policy that if more than a certain amount of unpaid leave is required, an employee may forfeit their contract.

With the aid of technology like telephone time clocks, and a little thoughtful policymaking, it is relatively easy to turn many cash-sucking employee problems around.

3 More Cash-Sucking Employee Problems Solved

Employees are a massive expense in a business. Some calculations indicate that an employee needs to be making at least three times their own wage every hour to be profitable to the average company … and if your employees have any motivational or productivity issues, there is little likelihood that they'll be able to perform to that standard. Today we check out common cash-sucking employee problems, and how a range of techniques and technology like telephone time clocks can help.

1. I had to fire an employee that was popular with other staff, and now my productivity has plummeted

Even a telephone time clock won’t save you from the plummeting productivity that de-motivated employees create. Don't try to stop other employees communicating with the fired employee - this will create doubt about your correctness in their minds. If the situation was so bad that you needed to fire the employee, there is every chance that the employees knew all about the problems too, and will eventually come round.

2. Some employees don't always hold themselves to the highest moral standards, and this affects the ones that do

Seeing people get away with unethical behaviour is a major demotivator for many employees. If you know about the behavior, all you do is make sure that it has consequences - a disciplinary hearing, a warning, or at worst, firing.

3. My employees keep alienating customers!

This is one of the most insidious cash-sucking problems. Timecard padding might cost you a few dollars a day or fifty dollars a week, but losing a customer could cost the business thousands over its lifetime. And whereas time card padding can be easily dealt with through telephone time clocks, bad customer service is harder to identify and correct. First, make sure employees know how to handle customers - teach them the basic customer service principles. You could also consider implementing a bonus system, whereby keeping customers happy or getting a good testimonial is worth a bonus.

It is always worth instituting a probationary period, and being extra-careful on hiring also, to make sure these problems don't develop in the first place!