Time Clocks

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don_resqcapt19 said:
I'm glad that I hate phones...I rarely carry mine and almost never answer the one at home.
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Well we sure agree there. :grin:

I carry my cell only because I have to, the home phone I almost never answer.
 
Only phone I have is the cellphone, haven't had a home phone in 2+ years. I just don't really think it's economical to pay for two phones anymore.

I know that this Verizon LG8300 has GPS on it for an extra fee, I would be able to use it. I'm sure if I looked around on the net, I would find that it could be tracked by the feds.
 
Chenley said:
Only phone I have is the cellphone, haven't had a home phone in 2+ years. I just don't really think it's economical to pay for two phones anymore.
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I'd agree if I didn't happen to live in a house that, in spite of being within two miles of three cell towers, has just about zero signal strength.

The cellular company has sent engineers here, and they confirm that (a) the signal is almost non-existant and (b) they will do nothing about it.
 
ITO,

So one man out works three ( 3x40=120) but he hasn't had a 40hr week in

months? Must be that new math.

I find some people can't put themselves in another persons' shoes. They

would have no problem " tracking " an employee, but if it happened to them

they would be outraged!!! Hence, the asinine comment. I guess you just

missed the point, trust the people and they will be trustworthy. I know this

because it is the way that I ran more than one business, and at the same

time, and had the most loyal and intuitive employees' you'll ever find.
 
benaround said:
ITO,

So one man out works three ( 3x40=120) but he hasn't had a 40hr week in

months? Must be that new math….
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I pay him for 40 hours, if he were working alone it would be a grin and bare it type of deal, but he is a foreman and should behave as a leader. As I have already stated the math works out in his favor. Also one of the reasons he gets General Forman’s pay, and a truck is because he out produces the others. Hence the heart burn.

…I find some people can't put themselves in another persons' shoes. They
would have no problem " tracking " an employee, but if it happened to them
they would be outraged!!! Hence, the asinine comment. I guess you just missed the point…
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I did not miss the point at all, perhaps you should consider my shoes, as “The Man” I risk everything, I sometimes work for nothing, and I have only myself to answer to, and if I am lucky, I make a little money doing it.

However when I worked for “The Man” by the hour , my time and location belonged to him, because I rented that to him for a agreed upon amount of money, if he chose to monitor me while I was on his time, it was not my concern. What he did with his time was also of no concern to me what so ever.

…trust the people and they will be trustworthy, I know this because it is the way that I ran more than one business, and at the same time, and had the most loyal and intuitive employees' you'll ever find.
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Sorry, but not all people are trust worthy. Sure some are, but the head in the sand approach has bitten me before, and I cant afford to lose this and everyone’s job with blind optimism.

The longer I am a contractor the less I seem to trust people in general, but it could be worse...I could be a cop.
 
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The thing with a time clock is this.

If I was ten minutes early, would round it up to the hour. If it was twenty minutes after I would round it back to the quarter hour. Easier for me to calc. When we went to a time clock the boss realized the it was costing him about an hour+ a week more per employee.
 
That's what I mean. The clock actually ended up costing the boss money in payroll.

Now some companies have policies that you cannot clock in more than 5 minutes before your start time and not later than 5 minutes after your end time.

But, if it truely is what it is, then you pay me from when I clock in to when I clock out.
 
I don't know if a timeclock would fix anything. Standing around doing nothing is more detrimental to morale (IMO) than the foreman disappearing an hour early at the end of the day, he could be lying to the crew and saying he's after parts. Waiting around for 3:30 to come around is just as bad.

I'd imagine the most effective tool in this case is communication and surprise visits at times he usually takes off.

Edit to add - and as far as GPS goes, I've seen guys take three hour lunches and simply leave the phone on the job, and then simply say they forgot it in the van. Technology is always one step behind laziness, IMO.
 
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After thinking about it a little, though the real problem is your forman taking off early, the fact that you have three other guys working under him that he is out performing and he is only working 7 hours a day to their 8, may, in his mind, justify what he is doing.

Is he really a forman or just a job supervisor?
Does he make a little or a lot more than the other guys on the crew?
Do you simply tell him what you need done that day or is the amount of work that gets done up to him?
 
georgestolz said:
Edit to add - and as far as GPS goes, I've seen guys take three hour lunches and simply leave the phone on the job, and then simply say they forgot it in the van. Technology is always one step behind laziness, IMO.
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They should just implant a GPS at birth... :grin: For the record, I am totally against any type of "Big Brother" watching out for me...
 
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Time Clock

Time Clock

At our larger projects, where we often have many technicians coming and going over the course of months, we sometimes use the security system in our locker to get a rough idea of the comings and goings of our people. Everyone logs in when they arrive and logs out when they leave. Since we install surveillance systems on these sites we can also review the video records to audit persons of interest on demand.

Since this function is built in to the security equipment it is intuitive for the employees and how we use the information is up to us.

We've also looked at GPS for our fleet, but have not installed it yet. We have equipped some clients' fleets with GPS systems.
 
Business is business, and even though he is screwing me on the time he still makes me money.

I am only losing sleep over it because of my ego, but my kids will need college money so my ego has to take a back seat to the bottom line...beside he retires a few years.
 
I put a GPS system on a couple of trucks a few years ago. The system was supposed to be able to keep several different types of records online depending on how much you wanted to pay for. It never worked right on either truck and I had them back in the shop a few times to be checked out. Most of the occasions when I looked to find a truck it couldn't be found. That might be better now with different cell technology.

I also bought a pretty good electronic time clock for a job once. We used it for a couple of months on a job and then gave up after continuous operational difficulties. Some related to environment and some related to employee resistance. I would probably try the jobclock if I was going to do that again.
 
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