Working hours: Working time fraud: How companies can defend themselves
Doing laundry, going shopping, watching Netflix: Again and again, employees take care of private matters during their working hours. Where the fraud begins and what companies can do about it.
In Berlin, employees are routinely clocking in while engaging in activities not related to work, such as shopping, exercising, or cooking, when they should be fulfilling their professional duties. This deceptive practice, known as Arbeitszeitbetrug, is more common than one might think. According to a survey conducted by the market research institute Consumerfieldwork, 13 percent of 1,000 German employees admitted to systematically underreporting their working hours.
Furthermore, three-quarters of the survey participants confessed to engaging in personal matters during work hours.
Sascha Stowasser, who heads the Institute for Applied Labor Sciences (IFAA) and has been researching workforce changes for years, warns that Arbeitszeitbetrug has significant economic implications. "Latenesses are very costly for businesses," he asserts. As such, it begs the question: where does poor workplace morale end and deceit begin? And what can managers do to curb this troubling trend?
Written by urgent.news from Handelsblatt's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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- Arbeitszeit: Arbeitszeitbetrug: So können sich Unternehmen wehren handelsblatt.com
