Employee claiming hours on her day off while working a full day elsewhere

[dodgylady23]

I manage one staff member. She’s casual and until recently another person (friend of hers) was signing her timesheets off.

For a number of reasons, not least of which being this employee is hopeless and has an attitude problem, I suspected something fishy with her timesheets so had them (rightfully) signed over to me.

She works four days with us and one day elsewhere. I had to insist multiple times that she add this regular day off to her calendar to indicate she was off. I’ve approved a few of her timesheets now, but just noticed she has claimed to have worked six hours for me on the day she works a full day elsewhere - her agreed day off from here.

Queried this with her only to have her get very defensive and claim she had urgent work to do here so managed to do both. She mentioned working on one thing (not at all urgent and a quick task) and “other bits and pieces”. She said she would send through evidence of her work if need be.

1. I didn’t authorise her to work on that day
2. This “urgent” work could have waited until the next day, or any number of days in the weeks ahead before it became urgent.
3. It’s impossible to work two jobs simultaneously.

AIBU to outright reject those additional hours and give her an award for biggest pisstaker of the year?

Of course! Let’s turn this around and make it the OPs fault for asking advice. Brilliant.

I can't imagine the gall of someone to keep on when you have clearly caught her out. I can only assume she thinks you will just stop looking at it if she says it's all fine.

There is no identifiable info about the individual on here that I can see, there are huge numbers of workers who divide their time between employers. I see no need to delete this thread.

You can easily do it in a way where it doesn't run the risk of that; in fact, multiple ways.

Highly doubtful she would have a case for discrimination. But would be easy to fire her anyway if she's been there <2 years.

But what would be the purpose of contacting the other organisation? There would need to be a context for doing it otherwise it could look like victimisation. If this employee is not scheduled to work at the op's organisation on certain days and is claiming to work, they need to deal with that directly within her.

It's true that you have fewer rights with less than 2 years' service - but protection from discrimination is a day one right for employees. If backed into a corner, this employee might make spurious claims that she is being dismissed due to a protected characteristic she has, to complicate things. That's why it is best to follow a clear and documented process to confirm she is dismissed for performance and conduct reasons.

still not confirmed wether she has proof that she wasn't actually at work that day

Unleash HR onto her. They'll get her!

(Maybe I'm being too harsh?)

hello, is it still theft if she did the actual work? I have a regular day day job but I do paid work which is 2 hours a day for a free lance client, usually I do an hour before I start my actual day job and depending on work load, I can do 1 hour at lunch/1 hr in the being dependent on workload and family stuff. Is this illegal? As I am working anyway I start up my work laptop and if there is something I think I can do that might easy my load for the next day I tend to do it. No charge to my freelance client obviously and no charge to actual job. (We don’t get over time anyway). Is this illegal?

Of course she can't work 2 jobs simultaneously, unless she is totally unfocused on both! So maybe office job and doing online work for you inbetween messages, still not professional or fully devoted to one. Nah, taking the piss! X

If both contracts allow the work despite any non-compete agreements, and you do the hours for one client only at a time, then it's fine.

I frequently do more than one thing at a time for a client, I don't charge them double, I charge the actual hours worked. You can't double dip and charge two clients for the same hours worked, that's fraud.

Thank you! No they are different tasks. Also the work for the freelance client isn’t paid to me directly. I do the work for free basically to raise money for charity, the money is paid into the charity bank account. Didn’t mean to steal your thread OP, but I panicked at inadvertently breaking the law whilst trying to do something nice!

She's commiting fraud. Don't be party to it.

UPDATE I’m coming back to this thread because I am fuming at the latest development.

I finally managed to get a record of this person’s timesheets and she has claimed countless weekends (it’s not ever weekend work), shifts exceeding 8hrs, days she called in sick, and many other days she was working elsewhere. I don’t think I needed more evidence for my organisation to get rid of her but there it was in black and white.

Advised my boss who agreed this was all fraud. My dodgy staff member took her complaints higher and spun a bunch of crap. Has likely initiated a bullying case against me. This is a guess but an educated one.

My boss has now gone on leave. Before he left he said he knew about the meeting my employee had with this higher up and not to worry, that investigations were underway. Said if I needed to, to go to his deputy with any issues, or this higher up who were across everything and knew the situation so were a safe space. That all was well and would be sorted out and this employee dealt with.

However, the day after he went on leave I was called into his deputy’s office. He told me to approve the timesheets. I was gobsmacked. He insisted and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I refused. He got pushy and claimed it was all a misunderstanding. That she had a right to work whenever she chose to and that if she was ripping off her other employer by working for us while she was supposed to be working for them then so be it.

Couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He pushed and pushed but I didn’t back down. I had another meeting so left but thought that was it. It was not. He called me in again later that day and became very unpleasant about it, pushing me to sign the sheet and accusing me of being difficult over this “small thing”. He raised his voice. I raised mine (very rare). I said I refused to implicate myself in fraud and that if it meant so much to him he could sign the timesheets off. He came up with some bullshit excuse as to why he couldn’t, so I said we would wait until our boss returned. He was very angry.

I left and went home for the day. I’m completely confused as to why this is anything to do with him and how I’ve become the villain and she the victim.

WTF do I do now? This is insane!

Wow, that's awful. Good for you telling him to sign them if he wants them approved so much. Does he have some kind of personal relationship with this woman, friends or something?

What an odd situation. Can you go to the higher up person? When is your manager back?

So she’s told them she’s ripping the other employer off, not yours then. I wonder what she’s got on the deputy. Well done on standing up to him. Silly, shouty man.

This is awful.
Can you go to higher up than your boss who is in leave? Or at least email them so it is in writing what the deputy expected and why you refused.

Hope you’re ok and maybe you should be ill until your boss is back!

This is fraud. I would involve police

I am wondering the same thing. This arsehole sounded like me signing off these bloody timesheets was his hill to die on. If I step outside my exasperation and upset about all this the bigger question remains. Why is he so intent on defending her?

Do you have screenshots and copies of everything?

I’m completely confused as to why this is anything to do with him

Well that part is easy, it is because he is the deputy, so his job is to deputise when the other is away or on holiday. He has presumably heard the outcome of the investigation and this is the conclusion.

Personally I think there are two paths for you to choose from. Either hang on for your boss to return from holiday and then discuss with them again. Or accept it this time, but going forward check the timesheets against known hours worked more regularly and closely.

(I am still a bit unclear, why considering that you have mentioned this is a casual worker, you can’t just stop utilising her).

I think you need to stick to your guns. You cannot knowingly sign something that you believe to be false. If this deputy feels so strongly then surely he has the authority to override you and sign them off.

It must be incredibly frustrating but remain calm and keep parroting the phrase "I will not sign something that I believe to be false."

Ask the deputy to put in writing his/her confirmation that you are instructed to sign off these time sheets.

Thinking about it, weren’t the time sheets already signed off though, by the other person. Why do they need signing off again anyway? I thought the issue was about fraudulent time sheets being signed off in the past, not timesheets that are waiting to be signed.

Document it all and send to the next layer of management above them.
Good suggestion to get his instructions in writing.

Wow - so either there is some kind of connection or relationship between these two (not suggesting anything sexual, but maybe a mutual friend, relative, other kind of connection) or she got in first, cried and played the victim and he is in strong he-man rescuer mode (I had a co-worker like this, the rest of the department (all women) could not stand her, but she had the male managers wrapped around her finger). Are you in a union? I would contact them if so. Or speak to HR about the way you were spoken to and make a complaint, explaining that you are working on this with your boss and will not be pressured into doing anything until he comes back.