What would be the best payment arrangement to a project manager to assure they are working and not billing us for being on the job and not there?
By: Rick Gossett
I need some suggestions on how to motivate our projects manager to push finish of our projects to meet projected start/finish times. What would be the best payment arrangement to a project manager to assure they are working and not billing us for being on the job and not there?
Answer:
A. Time Clock Policy: It is common for construction companies to require project managers and other employees to submit a form of weekly timesheet in order to accurately track labor time, costs, and profitability of each project. From a general business perspective, employers should have written policies and procedures that clearly state the proper method for employees to record their time worked, including any required meal or other breaks. We do not know the extent of the timekeeping issues with your employees or whether you have written company policies and procedures that govern timekeeping and the ramifications if employees fail to comply with the rules, but we suggest developing a progressive discipline policy that begins with employee reprimands and/or written warnings and culminates with termination for habitually noncompliant employees. Employee reprimands, warning letters, steps of discipline, and terminations are the common measures in dealing with employee non-compliance to company policies.
As discussed in the articles below, federal labor law requires that employees be paid for all time worked, so you should not institute a policy of automatically docking employees for failing to punch in or out or automatically docking them for meal breaks when they fail to punch in and out for them:
- Failure to clock in or out: humanresourceblog.com
- The top 3 FLSA violations and how to avoid them: adp.com
- Legal limits on pay docking and unpaid suspensions: nolo.com
- Employee rights & laws: twc.state.tx.us
Links and references to samples and template documents have been provided above. Templates and sample documents can be very useful but businesses should exercise caution in the use of such documents. Sample employee handbooks and personnel policy statements may not include every topic needed to address your particular fringe benefit programs, compensation plans, and other circumstances. A well-conceived document will, however, be relatively easy to modify, allowing you to add and delete sections as appropriate. Due to the complexity of labor laws, and the potential for liability in such areas as discrimination and confidentiality, we recommend that all employee handbooks and personnel policy statements be reviewed by a qualified labor lawyer.
Tracking reports are dated and can be printed remotely from a computer attached to the internet, therefore could be used as time tracking in addition to location tracking. You can find several service providers and equipment providers by using an internet search engine like Google. Below are some we have located:
- Vehicle Path GPS: vehiclepath.com
- ProTrak Ranger plus GPS real-time vehicle tracking system: nservices.com
- GPS tracking: brickhousesecurity.com
- GPS: gpsinsight.com
2. Interactive Voice Response: Dial in (using a cell phone or land line) systems for time tracking are also available that may meet your time clock needs (in and out) for your employees. The only issue with this system is you cannot verify if the employee is actually on the job site or where they enter their start and stop time. You can locate these systems on the internet also. Below are some we located:
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