WWYD - colleague's hours and possible corporate fraud

[AuntieRuth]

I've recently discovered that a colleague at work has only been working about 4.5 hours a day out of a contracted 7, and that this has been going on for years.

We have a flexileave policy, where we log our hours and if we work extra we can carry up to two days’ worth to take back when we need it e.g. if we need a shorter day for something. We are supposed to log the hours we work on a Google spreadsheet that we submit weekly. However, none of our line managers have ever checked them so people stopped submitting them.

The colleague confided in me the other day that she's still been dutifully logging her hours, but that she's not been working her full contracted hours for years. Apparently she's several hundred hours in deficit. Nobody is aware of this, certainly not our manager.

She's told me that she's covering childcare as she can't afford full time nursery for her pre-school and primary-aged children, and that her partner is only working part time and trying to set up their own business. For background, we're both in public sector jobs paying well above the national average.

She's got away with it for so long as she relocated during the pandemic and is now several counties away from our office. We're all expected to be in the office three times a week, but this isn't being enforced for my colleague who is allowed to WFH all the time and nobody has ever said anything. I know that she didn't ask for permission to relocate at the time, she just did it and assumed it would be ok. It means that nobody is noticing her drop in hours, other than that she just doesn't reply to chat messages.

What would you do in this situation? As far as I'm aware I'm the only person that knows, so if I raise this it will be obvious it came from me. We've both worked here a very long time and I don't want to damage my working relationships with other colleagues who may resent me making a complaint. Also, we currently only have an interim line manager and are being restructured, so I don't have anyone obvious above me to raise it with.

However, we're being paid by the tax payer and she's not fulfilling her contract. Is this corporate fraud?

I know many people will tell me it's not my business and to keep out of it, but it's galling that I'm working hard around family life, with early starts and late finishes to get my work and hours done, and am also having to pay out for childcare and regular travel to the office. In addition, the fact she's not working her hours impacts on my ability to my job. Whenever project issues are raised, there's this elephant in the room that if she was actually doing her hours she might have time to do all the things that are holding us up.

WWYD? Should I go to HR even though it will be obvious it was me, or do I just try to ignore it, even though I massively resent it for many reasons?

Follow whistleblowing policy, I wouldn't speak to their manager as let's be real they're in the wrong for not noticing a member of staff was clocking half their hours only, and for not collating the time sheets. Sure no one likes a micro manager but surely this is a bare minimum type of thing, so they might not be objective in looking into it.

A good approach.

She can't be underperforming by 50% as surely someone senior would have noticed that. She may be exaggerating her 'slacking off' too - some people like to boast about weird things.

Under the current economic circumstances, I wouldn't begrudge anyone trying to save money (essentially in relation to childcare costs).

Does her lack of effort/hours actively negatively impact you in terms of pay/progress/bonus etc? If not, I'd leave it. If it does, then have a chat with her to highlight how it is impacting you so she can address.

Gob smacked that this didn’t occur to you immediately

It’s fraud. Colleagues of mine have been dismissed for this. Problem is, now she’s confided in you, you’re complicit if you keep quiet. Plus, she’s a CF. When it was raised with me at work I had to follow up on it, it wasn’t pleasant for anyone, but it’s important for consistency and fairness that people work the hours they are paid to work. I’d be talking to my manager about this, fuck keeping quiet so she doesn’t know it’s you.

Wow the ultimate cf! Why should you be working your arse off whilst she is fleecing the company? Surely if you shop her there would be no working relationship to worry about because she would be sacked?

The issue is that her work output is holding up projects. It is a fair assumption for that her work output is due to lack of hours but this may not necessarily be the case.

As previous posters have said the way to address this is focus on where the blocks are coming from and what can be done to resolve this not on how many hours she works.

At our workplace (banking tech) 1.5 - 2.5 hours of ‘dead time’ is okay because that’s what you’d have in the office too when you consider breaks / lunch / chatting with colleagues and customers / walking to meetings. It doesn’t seem like it but it does add up. The Civil Service isn’t always aware of wfh vs office work best practices and it can be why they have so much more burnout.

If she was doing so little work surely it's obvious? Presumably she'll just say she's kidding you on if you report it and everyone will think you're really gullible.

Well there is a way of raising it slowly. Do you have meetings or appraisals? Is there any way you could question the team workload?

could you come up with a new way of logging hours or tracking work?
are you ever audited?

If you didn’t notice then no wonder she is getting away with it.

Maybe they are all at it and you are the only one doing the actual hours. Be careful.

So are you saying she is recording the actual hours on her timesheet or recording fraudulent hours? If she's recording the actual hours why not just nudge them towards looking at the time sheets?

This is why I left a job in a local authority - 20% of people doing 80% of the work, and no one from management willing to do anything about it.

Why did she tell you?!

The other issue is that a lot of jobs which are target based in reality still use 'hours' as a basis for the contract. There are of course jobs where the specific hours you work are important - if you are answering phones and are not there for 2.5 hours when you should be and the phones have to be answered by someone else then you are not doing your job.

But if your boss gives you a number of projects to do over a week and you are able to meet your targets in that week it shouldn't matter as much about how many exact minutes you worked on it. Managers certainly don't care if you do extra hours to get a project done.

I've mostly had jobs which were target based but with a nominal start and end time to the day. I've never had a job that I couldn't complete in half or three-quarters of the time assigned. I've also never seen anyone I've worked with in those jobs work solidly for every single contracted minute on the 'work itself'.

As soon as you add up time in the office to include - morning greetings, getting a coffee, answering a random phone call that wasn't for you, a bit of office chat, refilling your water bottle, a quick Google for that thing you need to fix at home, meandering toilet break, getting a cup of tea, quick chat with desk neighbour, etc etc - most people waste about 1.5 hours in the office at the least.

However you said she isn't getting the work done - that's a different issue and surely up to her managers to be on top of.

I'd keep your nose out of it to be honest.

I definitely think you should report it. If she is not reliable during work hours, how can anyone trust her to get the work done? Why should she be paid a full time wage when shes only working part time- and not even being efficient? What favours are you doing by covering her?
What she is doing is not right and I think you know what you need to do

I work in Civil Service counter fraud and we are very clear in all our policies and procedures that this is fraud, a breach of the civil service code and grounds for disciplinary. Individuals have been dismissed for this previously. We are also clear that this can be reported through whistleblowing channels if individuals dont want to raise with line managers themselves.

Fraud (including error) costs the public sector £33bn per year. Imagine how much our public services could improve with that amount of extra money every year. Yes your colleague is only one person, but when noone reports something, it also impacts the overall culture and everyone loses out in the long term. We all have a responsibility to the taxpayer to take this seriously. I would strongly encourage you to either raise through appropriate channels or chat to a trusted colleague who you think will take this seriously for advice.

What irks me is people having children knowing full well how expensive childcare is. Then they complain they can’t afford it! I have one kid in childcare I absolutely cannot afford to put another one in yet so guess what.. we won’t have one until we can! Bloody cheek of her when you pay for childcare too.

So for years the line managers have been doing no checks

unless all your colleagues confide in you like this one OP, presume that there are many more within the company doing exactly the same or worse than your “friend”

Fraud (including error) costs the public sector £33bn per year. I

if they can identify the cost of fraud, then that means they’ve identified the source of fraud so I don’t understand how this figure can be calculated

Is it genuinely affecting you?

It seems you hadn't noticed any slacking or lack of work before she told you.

I understand it can feel galling but right now with cost of living being what it is, I'd leave it if it isn't actually making your work life harder. To be honest it's on the management really, they should be on top of this and I can't really blame people for making what adjustments they can to make things work right now. As a PP said, there's also the possibility she's exaggerating. People often do that, sort of go "oh I've done nothing today" when really they have, or overplay how much they slack off.

Not sure if you realise this, but things can change. Someone well off can rapidly and unexpectedly become broke for all sorts of reasons, many out of their own control. Someone might be intending to have one child and then have twins. Cost of living can rocket (like right now). Both parents might end up having to work when the plan previously was for one to work and one to stay home. Endless reasons, none of which you will be privy to when it comes to the thousands of families who struggle to fund childcare.

It's interesting t me that you only mention that she is delaying things etc after a long OP in which you complain about her taking the piss.

I do not think you can bitch about her hours. it's' not on you, that's on management. BUT, if you genuinely feel that work is not being done because she is causing blockages or has inefficient processes, then THAT is something you can address with management. You don't have to drop her in it but you can say you are concerned that she acts as a bottleneck, and what can management suggest etc. They can then either choose to keep a closer eye on her or they can choose to implement some other policy that solves the problem.

Also, I once worked in a flexi-time situation where some colleagues would electronically clock in at the door when they arrived then take an hour to go to the loo and do all their make-up, go to the kitchen and make coffee and get something to eat, and then sit down at their desk an hour later. Add into that 2-3 tea runs during the day, and another 30 mins packing up and getting ready to go home meant nearly 2 hours of work time not actually doing work. On a Friday they'd clocked up 4-5 hours which meant they could leave at 2pm.

The craziest thing about all of this is that she told someone else. It is bad enough doing it but why on Earth would she put that on you. People are absolutely bonkers sometimes.