Time theft
Recently, I surfaced an old newspaper clipping headlined “The costliest theft of all: Work time.” Robert Half (before passing away at 82 years of age in September 2001) surveyed and performed nationwide studies of time theft within the workplace. He was the founder of Robert Half International, Inc. It is basically a human resource consulting firm that recruits for companies.
Accordingly, the article stated that the deliberate waste and abuse of time on the job costs billions of dollars, in fact, three times as much as shoplifting or employee pilferage. Half gave the most common examples of time-wasting and I saw myself as guilty of one of the inclusions (attending to personal business). Therefore, I was hesitant and delayed in writing about the topic. However, as I give an unrequired 16 hours very nearly every Saturday and Sunday to the university, I feel okay to attend to a bit of personal business during the weekdays.
Arriving late for work; leaving early; long lunch breaks; fabricating illness and taking unwarranted sick days; spending unreasonable amounts of time socializing with co-workers; reading newspapers, magazines, or books; attending to personal business; daydreaming and general inattention to the work; numerous and long personal telephone calls; extended coffee breaks; deliberately slowing down in order to create overtime; and eating lunch on the premises — then going out for a lunch hour constitutes Robert Half’s coverage. Nowadays, we could probably add smartphone social media attention, and/or “cyber-loafing” (surfing the web).
Good grief, through the years (especially my military and civil service employment) at times I have been guilty of each and every example! In my case, I presented a cost to taxpayers, not a loss of profits to any particular business or company.
The Journal of Vocational Behavior refers to Robert Half’s delineations as “counterproductive work behavior (CWB)” And, in particular, “production deviance,” which is defined as the purposeful failure to perform job tasks correctly and effectively (quality and quantity) the way they are supposed to be performed or simply the failure to do a task. This CWB is considered passive, less visible and difficult to prove.
Thus, time theft is when an employee accepts pay for time they have not actually put into their work. Therefore, it is using paid work time for nonwork-related activities without the employer’s authorization. It’s important to note that Robert Half stated in an interview that “Nothing is time theft unless it’s excessive.” A chat with a colleague, a personal phone call, or a trip to the water cooler is not time theft unless they are inordinate, that is, numerous and going beyond normal limits.
In most countries, there is no law that makes employee time theft illegal. So, it is usually classified as employee misconduct rather than a crime. However, there can be consequences to dodging responsibilities. CWB is volitional and presents a negative work culture and decreases employee morale.