employee won’t report his hours correctly

by Alison Green on April 8, 2025

A reader writes:

At my small company, employees have a small number of set hours each week but can set their own schedule to be as full or as empty as they’d like by scheduling sessions directly with the clients they are connected with. We give them a calendar where they input their hours worked, and then we process payroll based on those calendars twice a month. The calendars are the only way we know anything about people’s work schedules, as they can change drastically from week to week.

A new employee for some reason just will not fill out his calendar in anything approaching a timely manner. He has been here for months, and so far I have been able to process his hours with everyone else’s once. Except for that one time, he has completely ignored his calendar (and all of my emails) for about 1.5 months, then backfills it all and expects to be paid for all that time.

Aside from how strange this is, it creates a massive headache for me as I have to do special payroll runs for this one person. Our payroll system is time-intensive and far from my primary duty, and I am at my wits’ end. Do you have any suggestions for what I can do or how to get this to stop?

I answer this question — and three others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

  • My office includes me in Administrative Professionals Day just because I’m a woman
  • Reference checker only wanted me to call if the candidate was “exceptional”
  • How far back should your resume go?
You may also like:
{ 177 comments }

{ 177 comments… read them below }

  1. Richard Hershberger*

    EXCEPTIONAL: This has an air to it of the modern customer survey, where five stars in theory means “exceeded expectations” but in reality anything less than five surveys is understood as criticism. There is no room for “satisfactorily executed a routine transaction.” Or, in the case of job references “did a perfectly fine job, and I would be happy to have them working for me still.” Anything less than breathless ecstasy is counted a rubbish. feh. I pass on those customer surveys. For a job reference, this would be unfair to the candidate. Roll your ideas and make the call.

    1. Moths*

      That’s my concern with this reference request too. It would put more pressure on me to respond because I’d feel like they’re the type of place who believes they only hire exceptional candidates and so not responding because they were a good (but not exceptional) employee means they won’t get considered.

    2. 5 stars*

      Agreed. I always give 5 stars across the board in those surveys because competent workers shouldn’t be penalized for unreasonable and impossible corporate expectations.

      1. AnotherOne*

        my mom worked at a bank. anything less than 5 on a customer survey was a failure.

        so yeah, when i get those unless the survey makes it really clear that 3 is totally did a decent job and 5 is crazy above aboard, deserves a medal of honor, everyone always gets a 5.

        1. Richard Hershberger*

          The one time an employee at my credit union really went above and beyond to help me out, I wrote the home office a letter: an actual paper letter placed in an envelope with a stamp. My thought was that this was the way to get some signal through the noise.

          1. Freya*

            I’ve done this for a nurse who went above and beyond during what was a very trying time for me. I don’t know whether it had any effect or not, but I had to make sure SOMEONE knew it was appreciated!

          2. Joie De Vivre*

            I did this for an employee at my local post office. I witnessed her being absolutely fantastic with an older gentleman and on a different day being very professional when a customer was being a jerk to her.

            I’ve also asked to talk to the manger at a restaurant when my waiter was fantastic.

          3. SimonTheGreyWarden*

            I had this done for me many many years back at my first job and I still remember the kindness of the person who took the time to write in and praise me for doing what I felt was just what needed to be done (even though it was more than most people would have done).

      2. Angstrom*

        I’ve been told “If you can’t give us a 9 or a 10(10-point scale), please call us before returning the survey”. Really? I bring the car in for service, it gets serviced correctly, I’m satisfied, that should be a 5. But I know the frontline folks will get in trouble so I play the game.

      3. MigraineMonth*

        The stupidest extreme of this is a store location a friend worked out that was nearly closed down because they weren’t consistently scoring 5-stars on their surveys. The problem? Customers were selecting “N/A” for one of the questions, and since that wasn’t a 5, it was scored as a failure.

        *headdesk*

        1. Disappointed with the Staff*

          Please tell us it was “please rate our yacht servicing department in Manitoba” or something equally obviously insane.

          Have previously worked in weird niches of several companies where we were often completely ignored for surveys, company meetings, bonuses etc. Two people who write the software that keeps the 200 people in the factory working? No, you can’t rate us on how many widgets we produce and delivery delays on our stuff come from management (“we need it by Friday. We’ll tell you what we want when we know ourselves”)

    3. Indolent Libertine*

      Oh, yes, so much this. When the cable company sends someone to my house to restore my service because it’s out, my expectation is that they will restore my service to full and error-free functioning. If that happens, the visit has met my expectations, not exceeded them. But if I respond to the survey with anything less than the “breathless ecstasy” you so accurately and pithily describe, I know they will be written up. And I figure if I don’t respond, that will come back to bite the employee too. Grade inflation for grownups.

      1. Chirpy*

        Yeah, as someone on the receiving end of those customer satisfaction surveys, corporate looks at it like this:
        5 = acceptable
        4 = needs improvement
        3 = something went seriously wrong, this will be held against the employee
        2-1 = absolute disaster, employee needs retraining at minimum

        1. Disappointed with the Staff*

          1 = I hate these surveys but I can’t work out how to get to the order confirmation page without clicking one of the options. Your company sucks. All of you. Every last one. This has suddenly become a terrible experience and I hate you.

          1. Chirpy*

            Please don’t. This can actually have a serious effect on someone’s employment, who has absolutely no say in how the survey/website/order process is set up.

      2. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        “Was this the best customer service interaction you’ve ever had?” Jesus wept, I changed my email address (and I’m kinda annoyed that I had to call in to do so instead of going online), nothing life-changing was happening here. What a stupid question.

    4. Antilles*

      That’s how the wording reads to me too, yeah. If I don’t call back, they’ll assume that I think he sucks.

    5. coffee*

      I also hate when I might want to criticise the company policy and not the worker, but survey lumps the whole thing all together.

  2. Benihana scene stealer*

    I’d also add ageism as another reason not to have your resume go back more than 10-15 years

    The reference checker thing is weird, but I’ve found that at least in my experience a company’s hiring process isn’t always representative of how it will be to work there, so I’d just give the glowing recommendation and consider your part done

    1. a Fed*

      What if the 10-15 years in 1 job is the only job you’ve had after a graduate degree? Do you include a pre-degree job?

      1. MigraineMonth*

        Probably depends on relevance. If the pre-degree job could strengthen the application by demonstrating strengths in different areas or a track record of achievement across companies, sure. If not, I’d use the space to expand on my accomplishments in the job I’ve had for 10-15 years instead.

      2. Disappointed with the Staff*

        It’s like ‘three previous managers’ or any other inapplicable requirement, you just do the best you can. Three jobs? I was a junior llama attendant, then a llama wrangler, then a senior llama service technician. All while working for Camelids’R’Us. Likewise I was managed by the person above me in each role.

        It’s like the place that wanted every address I’d lived at in the last decade. I rent in a country with no tenant protections and a love of six or twelve month leases. I asked to attach a list because the form only had three spaces. They said they didn’t care and not to bother (I got the job).

  3. The Person from the Resume*

    I agree with LW#2, it is insulting to be lumped into a group you’re not part of just because that company barely hires women for anything other than administrative work.

    Admin Professionals Day seems demeaning too. We don’t have a day dedicated to all different careers. We have a day dedicated to one that is often under-appreciated, underpaid, treated poorly, and is mostly women. One day doesn’t make up for poor pay and treatment.

    1. MigraineMonth*

      If you’re determined to have an Admin Professionals Day, at least give them all a generous cash card and an extra day of PTO, not flowers.

      1. AnotherOne*

        I worked at a law firm just out of college that celebrated Admin Professionals Day, but there were male admins who were included. And I want to say we all got fed and a gift card or two.

      2. misselphaba*

        Honestly. Give all your Admin Professionals the day off that day and make everyone see what it’s like to do their jobs without them. I’m sure when they come back there will be much greater appreciation!

        1. Yvette*

          They might be better appreciated, but I bet their work will have piled up in their absence

        2. Judy*

          Yes! And since we don’t appear to be getting “better pay and year-round respect”; lunch is it (flowers?) so I’d rather get something than nothing.

    2. Not Tom, Just Petty*

      I remember this one. In the spirit of my username persona, I’d suggest passing the invitation to anyone at my level in the company and cc’ing the organizers.
      Hi, thanks for the invite. I think you missed a couple of people who work directly WITH ME (emphasis in my head). Fred Ferguson has been here as long as I have. Jim Keen and I produce the XYZ together. Thank you to the organizers for planning this event. I hope I’m doing my part to make it a success for everyone.
      Cheers,

      1. MigraineMonth*

        Exactly, we shouldn’t have a day to “appreciate” underpaid and poorly treated professions, we should pay them better and treat them better.

  4. MigraineMonth*

    I’m a female computer programmer. Weirdly, I’ve never felt “included” by people assuming that I’m a project manager, sales rep or a coworker’s wife. Those are all lovely things to be, but as those are not things I actually *am*, the assumption is as irritating as sand in my bathing suit.

    1. Sandi*

      I also work in tech and have attended work gatherings over the years where spouses were invited and it would end up with a gender divide where I was the only woman with the group of men. The one that got the most laughs was when the spouses decided to gather as a group and one of the men stepped out of my way saying “Would you like to join the ladies?” and I replied “I’m no fucking lady” and my coworkers laughed and we continued our conversation. I wish that the coworker hadn’t suggested it, although I know he did it to give me the option (because he was in my way, and to be fair his wife was really nice) but I knew these men well whereas I knew almost nothing of the women. Plus, most importantly, I wanted to talk about tech, which never seemed to be a topic of discussion with spouses.

      1. not nice, don't care*

        I’d have asked ‘are they engineers?’ or whatever relevant job category, and hard noped.

        1. Sandi*

          Oh good point… I knew almost nothing yet was confident that no spouses were engineers or tech (I’m also an engineer). In that specific ‘lady’ situation most of the wives didn’t work because the location was remote and had few job opportunities, so that made it harder to have a conversation because I didn’t have a spouse or children.

          1. JSPA*

            That’s an oddly literal take on a clear point. Sure, if everyone were marooned together for a decade, it would make sense for everyone to exhaust all possible conversational topics. Or there could have been mix-and-match conversion-starters for all. Or a seating chart.

            But the idea that (of all the engineers present) Sandi–and Sandi alone–should naturally welcome a chance to check out whether she has some third or fourth string topic in common with her coworkers’ spouses?

            Sorry, bending to that blatant sexism is way more problematic than assuming that, as an engineer who prefers to talk engineering with other engineers, it makes sense to continue… talking to engineers, rather than talking to “definitely not engineers.”

      2. ScruffyInternHerder*

        Engineering and Construction, and can confirm. I typically have little in common with the wives UNLESS they also work in the industry in some fashion.

        1. inksmith*

          Really, none of them? You don’t share any hobbies, interests, TV shows, sports, anything with any of the women married to your colleagues?

          I understand wanting to talk to your colleagues about the field you have in common, or not wanting to be punted over to the spouses because you’re a woman, but I have a hard time believing you have little in common with ANY of them (or with anyone who doesn’t work in your field, which seems to be your implication).

          1. Olive*

            My experience is that I can find a one-on-one interest with one or two other people regardless of gender (or else we can make small talk about the weather), but when I’m dropped into a group of wives of colleagues, 90% of the time I am much less like them than they are like each other. So I sit there while they talk about TV shows I haven’t seen.

            I also feel a lot less like I can share any different opinion or experience that might make me seem less agreeable. I told a male coworker whom I already have a good rapport with how much I hate resorts (in a lighthearted manner), but I’m not going to drop that into a conversation of spouses who are talking about how much they love their resort trips (including the wife of the coworker). If they were a group of women I was already friends or colleagues with, I’d feel much more comfortable speaking up. (Note that I would *not* monopolize any conversation with a rant about how much I hate something.)

      3. lanfy*

        As a woman in tech… yeah, at one company I worked at there was always a point at which the development team (almost entirely male) split from the admin team (almost entirely female), and for the first couple of years I worked there people looked at me funny every time I stayed with the people I knew, who were talking about geeky things that interested me, and played poker.

  5. Evan Þ*

    Hopefully a candidate who embezzled would be “EXCEPTIONAL.”

    After all, they never said “exceptionally GOOD.”

    2. Not Tom, Just Petty*

      See? Nuance? THAT is the type of thing that is not clear from the email.
      OP, write back and ask them to clarify. Like he was an exceptional employee. We never had anyone else consistently back the work vehicle into poles. He set a record that stands today for number of side view mirrors replaced.

    3. IainC*

      See also:

      incredible / unbelievable, extraordinary, etc.

      And miraculous doesn’t actual mean good. If you learn one thing from insurance policies: God is evil.

    4. IainC*

      And the classic:

      “You’d be lucky if you can get them two work for you”.

      I used to love using phrases that sounded nice at first hearing, but then later people could go “wait, whut?”. I partly grew up.

      1. Grasshopper Relocation LLC*

        „I can confidently say that nobody would be a better choice.”

  6. Venus*

    I agree that the general ‘tell us why this person is exceptional’ is a bad reference check.

    I did references at one point for some planned hires and we had a specific list to ask. It was by phone and quick (maybe 3-5 minutes), so this wasn’t an onerous list, and it was focused on the most important parts of the job. In my field we lead a lot of our own work so employees need to be comfortable talking with others and making their own work plans. That’s a subtlety most vague reference checks aren’t likely to mention. The reaction of the person also made a difference, because some were very enthusiastic whereas others conveyed concern about their former employee’s work in a subtle way that would have never happened on email.

    I also think it’s wildly inaccurate for this company to suggest that sending information by email is faster than a phone call. I would be tempted to email them back, say the person is exceptional, and that in the interest of saving time would it be possible to talk? Having said that, I think it is much easier and faster for them, so they might only want email.

    1. Antilles*

      I’ve always believed that requesting references by email misses the entire point of references. Why? Because you lose nuances of pauses, tone, and other vocal clues. You aren’t going to have good follow-up where you can probe about details beyond my vague “he was excellent technically”. And most notably because many people would be more hesitant to give negative feedback in a written format preserved forever.

      1. pally*

        Exactly!

        My far and away best lab tech came with a reference where I could practically hear her smiling over the phone.

  7. Analyst*

    My organization uses the applicant resume to calculate pay by determining years of experience from it. So…if you only put the last 10-15 years of your experience, that’s all you’re getting credited for by their system. The Hiring Manager can have the applicant submit a new resume but that relies on them noticing that and doing so.

    1. Generic Name*

      Yeah, same for my company. No offense to Alison or any other resume advice-giver, but I shot myself in the foot initially at my current job because I did not include the full breadth of my experience on my resume, per conventional wisdom. Fortunately they recognized that I should have been hired at the next level up and quickly promoted me, but I still lost out on a year’s worth of higher pay.

    2. kate (taylor’s version)*

      Ugh. Probably a practice that needs to stop. Our HR does the same.

      1. Wellie*

        Am I reading you correctly? It sounds like you are saying that calculating pay by years of experience should stop. Surely you don’t mean that.

        1. Isben Takes Tea*

          It’s one thing to factor in experience, quite another to use a shadow formula without verification to calculate that experience when it is extremely, extremely common to not list a full career’s experience in a resume. If at no point the company suggests or instructs the applicant to include a complete list of all experience (or offer a point for correction later with reference to pay being commensurate with listed experience), then yes, that practice should stop or be amended.

        2. Healthcare Manager*

          No, they’re saying ‘pay by years of experience as written in the resume and not based in reality should stop’.

        3. Hannah*

          So I actually got into this conversation once with a superior and to me it boils down to – experience with what? My superior at the time was basically backing into ageism by saying that simply being alive and in the world was valuable experience that should be recognized but even without that, I still don’t buy into the underlying concept.

          If Person A has 5 years experience with glowing reviews and a several awards, should they be paid less than Person B who has done mediocre work for 10 years? At what point are you looking to pay for quality vs keeping a seat warm?

          1. LL*

            Also, what about irrelevant experience? I have work experience from jobs I had while in high school and college and about 2 1/2 years of experience after college, but before grad school. None of those jobs are related to my current field (which is what I went to grad school for). Why should anyone pay extra for that?

          2. MigraineMonth*

            Yeah, this is similar to the “years of experience in X technology = expertise in technology” fallacy. There’s a general correlation that more experience is better, but there’s a ton of variance.

            For example, I technically have 13 years of experience with database development. For the first 7 of those years, I just added a column to a data table a couple of times a year. For the last 5, I wrote stored procedures and functions. I still don’t have actual expertise and anyone who hired me to be a database administrator would be in for a very unpleasant surprise.

            On the other end of the spectrum, someone tweeted a job posting requiring 5 years of experience in FastAPI, which the tweeter found unrealistic as the guy who’d invented it 2 years ago.

        4. Hannah Lee*

          I believe they are saying that HR should stop using an applicant’s resume as the sole data source of “years of experience” for determining pay rates. Not that years of experience should be disregarded when setting pay rates.

          A resume is a summary of work experience – a marketing document from the candidate to prospective employers to elicit enough interest to be moved forward in the application process. A well written resume is *focused* on the skills and experience most relevant to the job opening they are applying for. Often that means older work experience is left out, along with exhaustive detail of all the responsibilities, accomplishments and experience of the candidate. Even if those things are relevant to the job being applied for, serve the basis for skills, knowledge the candidate can bring to the table in the new role.

          HR is using that marketing document for another purpose entirely, without the candidate’s knowledge. If I were applying somewhere I knew had this practice, I would edit my resume differently. And if I didn’t know, and found out later? I would be livid! Why wouldn’t HR just ask for a full and complete work history before guessing how many years of experience I had, if “years of experience” is a key data point they are using to set pay rates?

        5. LL*

          No, she’s saying that calculating pay based on the jobs listed on the resume (which isn’t supposed to be a complete work history in the first place) needs to stop. Because it’s a ridiculous way to do that.

      2. Lady Danbury*

        Right! It took 2 seconds for Alison to verify how many years of experience survey respondents have in their field. Why can’t HR do the same?

    3. Benihana scene stealer*

      That doesn’t make any sense at all. Do they tell you this when you’re getting an offer letter? Like does it say your salary will be X, based on abc and that you have 8 years of experience because maybe you’ve only put your last couple of jobs?

      If I have 20 years of experience and they say “sorry your resume only said 8″… that’s a huge disconnect

      1. Nynaeve*

        I work for a land-grant university that calculates salaries like this and at least in my case they did not. It was, as noted above, up to the hiring manager to let me know that was what was going to happen and reccomend I review my resume and application materials one more time before it got sent back to HR for the salary and offer calculation. Thankfully, they also have about a 5 year rotation of position and salary review for everyone employed here, so it can get corrected after the fact, but you do have to wait until your position is up for review.

    4. Not Tom, Just Petty*

      I read it differently. I thought “go back 10 or 15 years” meaning cut early jobs, particularly ones that don’t have anything to do with your field. But then I remembered how old I am and holy crap, those jobs weren’t 15 years ago!
      But I am curious (and this is purely academic for me, I’ve had the same job for 30 years, so I have no idea what I’d do) but can someone walk me through this?
      If you worked at Company A from 1984-2004 then Company B from 2004-2010 then Company C from 2010-2018 and current job from 2018 to present, you only put down C and current, maybe B?
      What if the companies are IBM, Apple, Microsoft, McKinsey or Disney? Do you put down your work from the 1980s?
      thanks

      1. Annie*

        I wonder about that too. I’ve been at my job 24 years now and if I were suddenly RIFd, I’d only have one job in my industry with relevant experience for whatever next job I’d be looking at. My previous job was probably not really relevant.

      2. Great Frogs of Literature*

        For random companies, I’d probably just put C and current job. If I thought that A or B was particularly impressive or highlighted something about my skills that A and D don’t, I might list them briefly at the end. If A and B were IBM and Apple (and I was doing something meaningful there), I’d probably just list dates, company name, and job title — but I’d also be doing a calculation about whether it was better to have IBM and Apple, or to not make it clear that I had 40 years of work experience.

        (Whatever you do, do NOT provide a 15-page resume that includes your MS Word certifications from 1990. Actual resume I have seen…)

      3. Oldie but goodie*

        My first post-college job was indeed at Microsoft. Unfortunately, that was 25 years ago, so I now have to leave it off my resume, apparently.

        In somewhat related news, during my last job search, one pair of interviewers basically made fun of me for working at the same place for more than 6 years. Hopefully that’s an outlier.

        One benefit of leaving stuff off your resume is reducing the ageism. Do you still list your college degree(s), but leave off any years?

    5. Synaptically Unique*

      Same. And the practice of only listing part of the work history also resulted in hiring outside for a role that would have been perfect as a promotion for an existing employee. I had no idea they had exactly the right sort of background because it was further back. The new hire was a disaster and the interest of the solid employee came up in the course of cleaning up the mess. The promotion eventually went through and I managed to get a solid salary adjustment out of it, but that was several years of higher pay down the drain.

  8. Dr. Rebecca*

    LW1’s time-keeping system is appalling, and rife with the possibility of fraud, some of which is probably being perpetrated by the employee in question. Like, the employee definitely needs to be disciplined over the untimely reporting, but if the LW thinks people aren’t just making shit up to pad the numbers, seeing as there’s no checks/balances in place, they’re fooling themselves.

    1. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

      It seems like a bonkers system, but I would assume there is a way to double check that fraud isn’t happening: ie, logging into a shared system, coming to the office, billing for client services, etc. But yeah, the actual system needs to change.

    2. Wellie*

      Self-reporting hours real time vs self reporting hours retrospectively have similar opportunity for misrepresenting hours. Unless you are prepared to monitor people the entire work day, self reporting is always going to be vulnerable to fraud.
      I don’t recommend continuous monitoring.

    3. Ally McBeal*

      My thought was, if everyone has a set minimum of hours, then “Bob” should only be paid for that minimum number unless/until he files an amended or additional timesheet. He’s not acting like the payroll runaround is a problem for him – maybe he’s independently wealthy or his partner is the breadwinner – so LW1 should let it be less of a problem for themself as well.

      1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

        This. OP, can you pay him a base X hours? I guess not. Can you tell him he has to come to you on the day that payroll hours are due and complete his freaking hours full stop. Not, “he is not going to get paid” just “he is going to do this today.”
        Because he needs to be accountable for this. It’s ridiculous that you have to chase him down. Not to mention illegal.

          1. Lady Danbury*

            I’m assuming NT, JP is referring to the fact that he’s not being paid in a timely manner because you have to chase him down, which is illegal.

            1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

              Yes, this. It does sound more like I’m accusing OP of some sort of crime against a coworker. Not at all what I meant!

      2. Statler von Waldorf*

        The problem is with that idea is that it is against the law here in Canada and would get me in trouble with a whole variety of government agencies if I did it that way and he reported me for it. If he worked those hours, I have a legal obligation to pay them in a timely fashion in my jurisdiction, and the fact that he didn’t submit the hours DOES NOT change that legal obligation even one little bit. That’s the law up here, I can’t speak for elsewhere.

        This problem has a simple and legal solution. You set a hard deadline for payroll submissions. The first time they don’t submit it in time, you write them up. The second time you do it, you write them up again and let them know that if they do it again they will get fired. The third time you fire them for cause for their failure to follow company procedures and opening up the company to significant legal risk. I’ve done exactly that, and when the problem employee took us to employment standards, we won.

        If management won’t agree with that solution, you don’t have an employee problem, you have a management problem.

        1. Ally McBeal*

          But how can you be held liable if you don’t know how many hours he worked, due to HIS actions? Like, if he filed a complaint with the labor board, wouldn’t you just forward them the billions of emails you’ve sent him begging to know how many hours he worked on top of the minimum? Also, he’s apparently so lazy/apathetic about this issue that I imagine the risk of him complaining to the labor board is very small.

          1. MassMatt*

            I would be frustrated by this too, but according to Alison federal law (in the US, at least) says that it’s the employer’s responsibility to know what hours the employee worked, and pay for them in a timely fashion.

            There needs to be consequences for this person not reporting his hours, but not paying them can’t legally be one of them. Verbal and written warnings, ineligible for bonuses or promotion, PIP, termination.

            If the person’s manager doesn’t care about this either, it needs to go up the chain so consequences happen.

      3. Freya*

        That’s exactly how all the payrolls I do for my clients are run. If you are paid salary, you get salary, if you have minimum hours you get minimum hours unless you’ve submitted a timesheet on time, and if your minimum hours are zero (contractors) and you don’t submit a timesheet then you get nothing until you do.

        And if you submit late, you get paid as part of the next bill payments run, I’m not doing one early – in some clients’ cases, I can’t because the people who have to authorise the payments I set up (gotta have two people sign off on bank things) have schedules that mean they have set times during which they make themselves free to authorise things and otherwise they’re busy and may not get my message that I need a payment authorised. This is made clear during onboarding, and if people complain to me that they haven’t been paid and they haven’t done the required things, then I start CC-ing the people who should have done the on-boarding (especially if they do it repeatedly) and those people improve their on-boarding.

        Late timesheets and having to do additional payruns on payroll days because of them are still a pain, but they get less frequent when the perpetrators realise that I’m not going to hustle to fix things for them, and my opinion affects their raises (in the case of one particular client, I advise the people managers if the employee/contractor’s actions are costing them extra in my time, and they factor that in to the admin cost associated with employing them when contracts are being renewed). It’s not my job to micromanage these people into submitting their timesheets on time; if they need reminders then they can set a repeating calendar alert.

        (there’s a timesheet in my inbox right now where the contractor used to send timesheets once every three months, and with the input of their manager on how this was jeopardising the things they were working on because we can’t on-bill their time if we don’t know what hours they worked and people don’t like being on-billed three months after the fact, they’re now submitting every fortnight. A week late and covering the fortnight one week offset from the payroll fortnight, but it’s a distinct improvement and I’ll take it)

    4. EngineeringFun*

      We have to log hours every day. If you forget one day you get an email from your boss. If you forget 2 days you get an email from grand boss…and so on. I rarely forget to put them in and I have reminders each day.

    5. Artemesia*

      Failure to accurately report time is a consistently major fireable offense. This is one to insist on being done timely and accurately and if someone can’t, they need to be let go. The roots of so much financial fraud start here.

    6. Momma Bear*

      Even at my lowest-level hourly job I needed to clock in/out or at the very least do a timesheet manually every Friday. LW doesn’t need to make them keep the same schedule, but I think it would help in the long run to use some kind of software – there are so many options for small businesses. I’ve worked for several companies where you do your timesheet daily to the quarter hour or you got an automatic nastygram the next morning. LW may not need to go that far for one person, but I think the system needs to be revisited.

      That said, I do agree with Allison – this is something that needs to go to the disciplinary level. Either he does his timesheet timely or faces consequences. I could see maybe being a day or two off but months? AND he ignored LW’s emails? Sounds like there are bigger issues than timekeeping.

  9. Antilles*

    #1: The idea that he fills out his time sheet 1.5 months later and then you back-pay him based on that feels wild. How does he remember his time from six weeks ago accurately? Does he have any real records of that time or is just he just going based on his vague estimates as to what happened six weeks ago? How do you-the-company have any way of verifying something that far back?

    1. here's the thing*

      By law, companies have to pay for hours worked. So they really have no choice but to pay him something.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        Absolutely, they have to pay him for the hours worked. However, they don’t have to keep employing him if he causes payroll headaches and opens the company to liability by repeatedly submitting his hours over a month late.

        Submitting hours is a core component of the job, like showing up wearing clothing and not swearing at clients. You don’t dock someone’s pay for that, you pay them for hours worked and fire them.

    2. KateM*

      I as a teacher have definitely filled the school’s online diary months later. I have it all planned out in my excel file at home and I take attendance on paper. And yes, it is not good, I have tried to get better. (Should I go and fill in today and yesterday? Nah, I will wait until tomorrow evening, I think, and enter them all together.)

      As to verifying, seems that this company doesn’t have a way to verify even what happened yesterday, so that’s not a problem.

      1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

        Question: did this affect (effect? pls and thanks) payroll? Was the diary for a different admin purpose?

        1. KateM*

          It didn’t affect payroll because (hopefully I’m using this term correctly) teachers are salaried, but as my boss keeps telling me – TPTB need to be able to see that I have worked.

          1. Sillysaurus*

            Huh! When I worked in the schools (in the US), we just had a timecard to glance at each pay period and make sure it was accurate. It just had our standard working hours noted. No timekeeping at all.

            1. KateM*

              It’s not timekeeping, it’s entering information about lessons I have given – things that absolutely must be there are the theme of the lesson and attendance. And similarly to OP of this thread, one could argue that I can’t possibly remember 1.5 months later who was in a certain lesson or what topics did I cover.

      2. Hannah Lee*

        Yeah, just filling in a work diary of activities is one thing. (and believe me, I have heard from many teacher friends that the online reporting of stuff that has no bearing on the quality or quantity of teaching they are doing is an incredible hassle that they struggle to complete on top of all the stuff they already have to do that benefits the students they serve)

        But if your pay doesn’t change depending on your entries, that’s a different issue entirely.
        (your work may be different, but any teacher I’ve known has a set salary per pay period, the only adjustments being stipends for additional responsibilities like class advisor, coaching, leading class plays, etc … this is US based)

        1. KateM*

          Agreed. What I was really replying was that employee filling time sheet 1.5 months later does not have to mean that he doesn’t fill it exactly. If he actually makes it to the sessions that he schedules with clients directly it is quite probable that he has some kind of calendar or scheduling notebook or whatnot.

    3. Lucy P*

      I have this same conversation all the time with one of our employees who refuses to do a timesheet until 2 days after it was due. Some of our jobs are billed based on man-hours. If he only does his timesheet every 2 weeks, there’s no way he’s correctly remembering how much time was spent on each task. There are times when I know he’s worked on a specific project that doesn’t get recorded.

      On a separate note, I have a friend that used to work for a major hotel chain that required employees to clock in. If they were at work on time, but didn’t clock in, they didn’t get paid for that time. I don’t understand how that’s legal.

      1. francine pascal*

        It isn’t, Lucy P! I’d encourage them to report it to the state dept. of labor.

      2. Artemesia*

        why haven’t you fired them? The world is full of people who need jobs and have skills; hire someone who can manage paying attention.

      3. The Rural Juror*

        I work for a company that provides billable services to many clients. I have a hard time remembering how I spent my time all week when I do my timesheet on Friday. I can’t even imagine waiting several weeks! The timesheet doesn’t affect my pay, it determines how we bill our clients.
        I try to fill it in at the end of every day but, realistically, I’m usually filling it on Friday at 4:55 haha

    4. Relentlessly Socratic*

      Many of the payroll systems that I’ve used are just punishingly bad to use. I hated using them and I really hated having to use them every single day.

      When I was employed f/t at my old orgs, I’d track my hours on paper and enter them into the system at the end of the pay period. Now, I’m self-employed and I track hours in my excel invoices and bill monthly, but I also jot my hours and projects down on paper every day in case anything happens to my computer.

      So it’s certainly possible to track time accurately and just not type it into the system. Not updating one’s time card, however, within a pay period is very much not okay.

    5. JP*

      We had an senior employee who wouldn’t fill out his time sheets for six months to a year at a time. Which is bonkers because we’re consultants so we couldn’t bill our clients properly for his time and probably lost a ton of revenue. He was brilliant, so it was allowed to go on for way too long before there were real consequences. He would just get paid a flat 40 hours per week, regardless of the amount of time that he worked.

      1. Grizabella the Glamour Cat*

        Sounds like he didn’t have much incentive to actually fill out his time sheets, and he experienced no real consequences for not doing it. It’s not surprising he never bothered.

  10. HB*

    Tell Lazy Calendar Person they don’t have to worry about submitting their hours because they no longer have any.

    1. A. Lab Rabbit*

      Honestly, this is where I land. If he can’t even do the bare minimum to get paid I don’t think he has a lot of motivation for doing a good job regardless.

      1. Wellie*

        Don’t be absurd. Unless his core job is filling out forms, there is no reason to assume he is unmotivated to perform his expertise based on his timeliness in an annoying administrative task.

        1. A. Lab Rabbit*

          I am not absurd. Most of what I do throughout the day is boring administrative stuff, but it has to be done. If he can’t even fill out a time sheet to ensure that his needs are met (regardless of doing whatever he has to do to actually meet client needs), and he has to put someone through extra work for it, I suspect he is really not up to snuff.

          Much of what we have to do on a job is boring or annoying. That’s why it’s work and not a hobby. This employee needs to grow up and do the annoying administrative tasks in a timely manner so he is not making extra work for people.

          1. Bird names*

            This, yeah. Part of being a good employee is being able to work together and he’s certainly not demonstrating that when he’s leaving the LW to chase after him all the time.

        2. Duke Flapjack*

          The whole reason to do a job is getting paid and this clownshoe isn’t even bothering to take the five minutes a day to do it right! I have ADHD and I remember to fill out my timesheets! This is entry-level stuff.

        3. Not Tom, Just Petty*

          If he doesn’t like the pay system he can have a conversation with his boss. He can say that this administrative time keeping process is crap and I don’t want to waste my time doing it. What can we do instead?
          And his boss can tell him to suck it up, it’s part of the job. Or his boss can take it as a chance to review a process that is not working well.
          They can decide that employees only have to fill in when they are doing X+Y and not for every day.
          But refusing to do it, has left him with: 1) he’s still doing it. In bulk instead of over time. 2) OP has to chase him down 3) OP has to run an individual payroll to protect the company because they are out of compliance with labor laws.
          So fix the problem, don’t make it worse.

        4. Feral Humanist*

          Annoying administrative tasks are part of every job. They are not BENEATH you. There is a certain type of — almost always male — employee who thinks they are, though, and expects the women around him to take care of it, even if he’s below them in the hierarchy. When I had a similar employee, he seemed to feel that they were not worth his time — and yet the time I spent chasing him down to remind him to do them didn’t bother him at all (even though I made considerably more). It’s sexist AF.

        5. HB*

          Yes there is. He’s not even attempting to comply with time keeping. Even in California you have to attempt to comply.

        6. we stan captain rex here*

          I work at a place where the time card system is legit the worst I’ve encountered so far. It’s like someone took an actual punch card system and said, “let’s just turn it into a website.” My job is not, “person who fills in time cards.” I hate this website . And yet I have to interact with it twice a day, 5 days a week (more often if I’m putting in a request for paid time off).
          So I do it because I like having money, even more than I like not being hassled by our payroll person for late or incorrect timesheets.

          Just because you don’t like doing a boring task, Wellie–aka the guy the LW was writing about–doesn’t mean you can just skip doing it. Fill out your billable hours when you’re supposed to, how you’re supposed to, or find a new job, FFS.

  11. kate (taylor’s version)*

    I guess…what would the company do if there’s a new admin that is not female? Would they then include the entire office in this meal? If OP wants to go out to lunch with the “ladies”, she can certainly set up their own lunch and not be included in a special lunch for Admins. And that the company thinks it’s okay, because they expect their admin to be women…is not cool either.

    1. Mark This Confidential And Leave It Laying Around*

      We have a few male admins here and they were beyond disgruntled by the very feminine gifts one year. I am an admin professional snd I HATE this day. Also: a single red rose? That was the “we’re ALL pissed iff now” year. HR sent all the admins a single red rose. Do you want a date? What is this? It’s crap amd must die.

      1. Chocolate Teapot*

        At a previous job, the female admins got flowers and the male admins (one of whom had never originally applied for an admin job but got stuck with it) received bottles of champagne.

        1. I Have RBF*

          That sucks. Why not give them all a nice bottle of wine, or something not gendered. Flowers are pretty gendered.

    2. Hiding from my boss*

      When we got a male admin, a big deal was made of “our first male admin” it in a staff meeting. He was promoted out of admin in a relatively short period of time. Younger women admins have been promoted. Older women are patronized and left behind.

  12. Wellie*

    LW1 didn’t really get an answer—or at least not an actionable answer for the LW. It’s not clear what authority LW has, so without more information, the answer is, escalate the problem to a person who has the ability to create systems and impose consequences. Explain the impact both on you personally and of not following the law.

    1. The Person from the Resume*

      The person’s supervisor (not LW) needs to tell the new guy to submit his hours on time from now on or there will be consequences (ie firing). If the organization needs to have a PIP, the plan is the guy submits his hours on time every pay period. The supervisor checks at the deadline and if it’s not done the supervisor tracks him down and makes him submit and then fires him. It is a ma satire fu cation of his job to submit his hours worked on time every time.

      1. The Person from the Resume*

        I think I meant

        It’s a major function / requirement of his job to submit his hours worked on time every time.

        It’s not a minor, unimportant thing.

        1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

          Dear Person from Resume,
          I was preparing to google your Latin phrase, “a ma satire fu cation” when I saw your follow up.
          Yes, yes, I did.

          1. The Person from the Resume*

            LOL! Autocorrect really did a number on typo. I wasn’t even sure what I wrote but at least I recalled the gist.

            1. Beany*

              As Thursday Next’s son Friday would often tell her, “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.”

  13. Generic Name*

    No. 1) Please discipline your employee for not properly tracking their time. Watching my former employer not discipline an employee who did something similar to this (except I had to pick up the slack of the work they weren’t doing when they were out of communication and not filling out their timesheet) was the beginning of the end for my employment there. People will see that there are no consequences for not reporting their hours and either will also not report their hours or they might decide to move to a company with more functional management.

    1. Benihana scene stealer*

      I don’t foresee this becoming a bigger problem since most people want to get paid as soon as possible, so there would be no reason to not report the hours.

      This guy apparently doesnt’ live paycheck to paycheck, so good for him I guess, but yes he still needs to get it in on time

  14. bee*

    I know Alison addressed it in her response, but telling folks not to respond unless they’re exceptional is such a bad way to do references— people miss emails, people don’t answer calls from unknown numbers, people are working full time jobs that may be in their busy period. I once had a friend who almost got rejected from a job because her former manager wasn’t responding to phone calls— he was on an international trip without his non-work phone and said as much in his voicemail message. The recruiter was apparently of the mind not having references available at the drop of a hat was a red flag which luckily was not a shared sentiment by the hiring manager in the end.

  15. Always Tired*

    Are they inviting you to Admin Day because one of the admins put it on the boss’s calendar and it made them realize they forgot Women in Construction Week?

    Because the first week in March is Women in Construction Week, and then it would make sense to invite all the women to a luncheon. I ask because I used to be the admin that would put it on people’s calendars so they would buy me lunch, and now that I do HR at a construction firm, I make sure both are on the calendar and are two different things because being an Administrative Professional doesn’t require a specific gender.

  16. Late Timesheets*

    LW1 – Not to judge too harshly about a timesheet system I have only the barest understanding of, but I think this is as much an indictment of your system as it is your employee. There are a 1000 ways of tracking hours worked that, I would think, are far more accurate and easier for both employees and management than how you’ve described your system. Something app-based comes immediately to mind.

    There probably will be an additional cost to using these systems, make no mistake. But you’re flirting with legal disaster by having a system that practically begs for abuse by employees and for legal problems with timely wage payment (as Alison notes). It’s 100% worth it to pay that extra money.

    Make no mistake: your employee is an ass. You need to be very, very clear about the expectations of how and when he fills out his “timesheets”. Spell it out that he must have it completed by X time on Y day of the week, every week. If he fails to do so, he will be paid his full amount only when he submits AND he will be docked Z percentage each day it’s late. Check FIRST with an employment lawyer in your state…and in his state, if he lives in a different state…to make sure what you are legally allowed to do here, though – you may not be allowed to assess financial penalties. But almost certainly you can say it’s three strikes and yer out. If he’s late even one minute, that’s a strike. But clarity is key here. He needs to know, and acknowledge it in writing, what is expected of him. And it doesn’t hurt if you can legit explain why it’s such a problem when he’s late submitting his hours.

    Also, while you probably CAN (legally) have a special set of procedures just for him? It’s better if it’s a company-wide policy.

    1. Statler von Waldorf*

      “If he fails to do so, he will be paid his full amount only when he submits AND he will be docked Z percentage each day it’s late.”

      I think this is actually bad advice and needs to be called out. It is flat-out illegal to do that under the laws in my jurisdiction, (Canada) and doing this would open up the employer to a huge amount of legal liability. Most of my knowledge of the FLSA in America comes from reading this web site, but based a quick google search and on my layman’s understanding of it, it would appear to violate that as well.

      I do agree that consulting an employment lawyer in your jurisdiction before you make unilateral changes to an employee’s paycheck is a very good idea.

    2. Kella*

      Withholding or docking pay is absolutely not legal. Just like how companies can’t retroactively lower your salary for a past pay period, they also cannot use docking pay as a form of discipline. OP’s company is obligated to pay the employee for all his time worked, within a specific time frame, regardless of what the employee does. OP’s company is *not* obligated to continue employing him.

    3. fhqwhgads*

      It is not legal to withhold or dock pay due to missing timesheets.
      It is legal to fire someone for not turning in timesheets.
      You still owe them pay for the time they did work, but you can end their employment due to failure to submit, and that solves the problem of them not doing it.

  17. toolegittoresign*

    #1 — Is your timesheet system easy to use? I will say that in my industry, chasing people down over timesheets is common. But it’s because a lot of people suffer from terrible “timesheet anxiety/avoidance.” This is because:
    1. it can be difficult to remember to what code each task should be billed
    2. billing time to clients can feel stressful if you know you went over scoped hours or are behind on work
    3. If you’ve had a long week that was already stressful, finishing it out with a tedious, stressful and time-consuming task like filling out timesheets can make you just want to cry.

    Here’s what helps to get people to do the damn thing:
    – Make a cheat sheet to simplify billing codes and such to make it easier
    – Explain what matters most about timesheets and be realistic in what types of issues will result in discipline. This will alleviate anxiety about what is actually “you did it wrong and now you’re in trouble” vs “you made a mistake, you’re human” vs “you went over hours and we’d rather you note that so we can better scope projects in the future” vs “you went over hours and that is not acceptable ever.” I am so much better about my timesheets now that I know that my company needs them to figure out what work has already been done and that I’m not going to get in trouble for going over hours as long as I’m not being ridiculous about it.
    – Explain how doing timesheets in a timely matter benefits them. My project managers told me if I do my timesheets every week, they can then do a better job of making sure I’m not over-booked. Seeing it as mutually beneficial has helped it feel less like “one more tedious report to do before I can start my weekend” and more like “one thing I do to help my PM make sure my to-do list for next week is more manageable”

    1. Wellie*

      The lovely payroll people at my company send us a fortnightly reminder to do our timesheets. I love it. I’ve never experienced anything like this even though I’ve been filling out timesheets my entire career.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        Reminders are great IN MODERATION.

        We have two different systems (one to track time off, one to track time spent on different projects), neither of which actually affects my pay since I’m salaried. I got so many reminders from different people that I got in the bad habit of ignoring all of them.

        After the third time I was late and had to get a nudge from my boss or an admin, I just set up an appointment on my calendar and created email filters on keywords in the subject line to filter out all but the biweekly reminders.

    2. A. Lab Rabbit*

      You can also fill out your time sheet on a daily basis, which helps reduce the stress of doing it all on a Friday.

      2. Always Tired*

        My three star employees (as far as time cards are concerned) keep the time card tab open at all times and enter data as they switch tasks. Their time cards are the most accurate and always on time.

        Working in construction we pay weekly, so every Monday I have to verify the prior week’s time cards and it is a beast. Even the salaried employees have to do time cards, because most of their time is billable to projects.

    3. Zona the Great*

      I experienced this at a state government agency. We were to bill our time to our projects or to the general fund if it couldn’t be billed to a project. However, because I was new, I was not on any projects yet. So boss would complain every week that I was billing too much to the general fund. Yet she wouldn’t assign me projects and kept telling me I needed to figure this out. The anticipated stress and horrible treatment from my boss made me so scared of the timesheet.

    4. JessB*

      Those suggestions are so helpful! Very concrete actions that can be taken to support staff to complete and submit their timesheets by the deadline.

  18. 10-15 years*

    I’ve been at the same place for 11 years, but have had 7 different titles in that time. Right now, I still have the role I held before this one on my resume – but if I make it to, say, 13, 14, 15 years at this organization, would it make sense to just list the one organization noting all the different roles I’ve held?

    1. FlynnProvenza*

      I’ve got 28 years of relative experience, but have 11 years in current job and 7 in my last. I use those as the first page of my resume under “Recent Experience”, and then the second page as “Areas of Expertise and Specialties” to list skills and accomplishments that may not be as covered in the last two jobs… Corporate Training, Event Planning, Publications, Board of Directors Facilitation, etc. then I don’t miss anything that may be relevant to an opening.

  19. blood orange*

    As a person who runs payroll for 280 staff, many of whom use hourly time cards, I’m a little stressed reading the first letter! In addition to the surface compliance of paying employees on time, if OP is in an industry with additional compliance on record-keeping (such as a licensed therapist), the employee’s habits might cause an issue there as well.

    Whatever is preventing the employee from accurately keeping his time, he needs a discussion from his manager that the way things have been going is not an option, it creates an administrative and compliance burden on his colleagues, and the expectation is that he’ll track his hours the way everyone else is going forward. Be open to whatever challenges he’s facing, but things definitely can’t continue the way they have been.

  20. Nusth*

    When I was 20, I worked as a language assistant teacher at my college, which involved scheduling my own classes, and reporting to the language department when I had worked. Concurrently, my small college had an absolutely off the rails reply all issue, especially around lost items – it got to the point that people were sending joke emails about it, further clogging my inbox. Feeling SO smart, I created an inbox rule that moved all emails with the word “lost” or “missing” in the subject to a new folder and marked them read.

    Well…. Fast forward to four years later, long after I’d left the school, and I’m shutting down my .edu email and sifting through anything maybe important. Lo and behold, buried in my super smart “lost and missing” folder is an email from the head of the language dept, alerting me to the fact that my timesheets for the last two weeks are MISSING. Lost out on like $60 because of my stupid sorting rule.

    Anyway. Not really related, just a story about my own timesheet stupidity that still makes me laugh.

    1. sigh*

      If only they’d had a standard subject line (e.g. Lost & Found / Looking For / Lost Item) for your sorting rule!

    2. MigraineMonth*

      The “log your time to your projects” reminders at my workplace are so frequent that I filtered out all of them that didn’t also include “final reminder” in the header.

  21. Debby*

    I had one boss who solved this whole thing of “Admin Day” and “Secretary’s Day” and “Nurses’ Day”-one day a year he closed the office at noon and took us all out to lunch. He called it “Employee’s Appreciation Day”. And then we had the rest of the day off, PAID. We were small, about 10 employees. But we loved it! This way everyone was included.
    I imagine a larger company could cater in a lunch or something?

    1. Office Gumby*

      My place of employment does something like this. They hold a regular sausage sizzle (very Aussie) in appreciation for the employees.

      A (paid) afternoon off would be nice as well, but as we’re a form of service provider, we can’t really do that, alas.

  22. Varthema*

    Does that first letter smell like nebulously classified contractors to me? They said “employees” but misunderstanding of the difference is rife, especially in certain industries (I’m thinking of anything involving freelance teachers especially).

    1. Varthema*

      meant to ask, “to anyone else?” but it’s 7:45 pm on a Tuesday and my brain doesn’t work anymore.

    2. Kella*

      Not really, no. It sounds to me like a company with remote employees and a self-report time card system (not that uncommon) that has no additional system to enforce that hours are reported on time.

    3. I'm just here for the cats!!*

      No that’s a weird take. It sounds like they need a better reporting system if there’s no way to track employees meeting with clients.

  23. nnn*

    For #1, if you haven’t already, you might specifically mention to the new employee that doing the timesheet late means you, personally, have to do a special payroll run for them.

    In my capacity as someone who knows nothing about payroll, I never would have guessed that submitting it late means extra work for an actual human being – I always assumed that it was simply a matter of putting numbers into a computer and the computer computes them.

    For some people, knowing that it directly and personally inconveniences a co-worker might get them to reprioritize.

  24. dulcinea47*

    Every job I’ve ever had as a non-exempt employee made it clear that if you didn’t do your timesheet right and on time, you weren’t going to get paid right or on time, and too bad for you. I’m pretty sure it’s legal here since the state does it. The one time it happened to me it took a full month (two pay cycles) to get paid back.

    1. I'm just here for the cats!!*

      just because the state does it doesn’t mean it’s legal. For example, I work for a state university and a coworker told me a story about payroll issue he had. Basically there were 2 people with the same name. One of them fired/quit. Well the removed the wrong one from payroll so he didn’t get paid. He called up the HR and they said, “You no longer work for us.” News to him/ they figured out it was a different person on another campus. They wanted to wait until the next month to pay him, so he would have 2 months of pay (they were paid monthly). He had to threaten getting a lawyer involved before they would cut him a check.

    2. Kara*

      Illegal federally. Look up the FLSA. The state may be doing it, but that doesn’t mean they’re allowed to.

  25. Coverage Associate*

    I think lawyer time entry is different from what’s at issue here, but there are also issues of lawyers not entering billable hours timely. One “punishment” I have read about is stopping automatic deposit of salary if a lawyer has not entered their time, such that they have to go to their boss to get their check.

    The advantage of this system is that usually law bosses don’t want to be hounding employees about entering time. It’s the accounting and finance departments. This puts a burden on the boss to have the conversation with the employee, rather than letting it remain as administrative background noise.

    1. Hannah Lee*

      Oh, I like this!

      It ‘feeds several birds with one scone’

      OP can just process pay for minimum or standard hours along with everyone else’s pay, but code this guy’s to pay as a manual check, so their bit is done as soon as they hand off the check to guy’s manager.
      Then manager gets to do his job (deal with the hassle of guy not reporting his time, discipline guy if he doesn’t want to be the check delivery person) and guy has the hassle of tracking down his check and depositing it … due to his own (in)action, choices.

  26. Raida*

    You are payroll.
    This is not your problem.
    This is *his manager’s* problem.
    Your area sends a message to each manager, stating that their team has xx outstanding timesheets. Stating that outstanding timesheets do not get paid. Stating that a gap of (you company should go invent a policy on this) xx days/weeks outstanding will result in yyy.

    Suggestions: Network computer access being cut for the staff member. A meeting with their manager will be put into the calendar to fill in timesheets and the manager report back to Payroll a confirmation there is no outstanding timesheet. Repeated lagging in timesheets will result in earlier reminder/meeting/access cut off.

    This is a Performance Issue for the manager to handle – and your team’s manager/director should be throwing their weight behind any messages to managers about their team’s admin – of which they are certainly the point of contact and responsible.

  27. I'm just here for the cats!!*

    As and admin assistant I disagree that the day should go away all togehter. In a role in higher ed where lower staff (i.e. not professors or anyone part of Student Affairs) admins get overlooked. It’s nice to get the thanks, even if it’s just an email.

    1. we stan captain rex here*

      Yeah, I’m a little [insert side-eye emoji] when I see people get on their high horse about “get rid of Admin Professionals Day! Just give them cash and more PTO!” As with every other time that suggestion comes up here (and on other websites)–that is not always a viable option. ESPECIALLY for a random manager to just do for their department, team, one employee, etc. Should administrative assistance work be better valued and better paid in general? Yes. Should people in general, including admins, have more PTO? Yes. But I’ve never worked anywhere–non-profit or the private sector, large company or small business, medical field, higher education, journalism, retail, etc–where I could just get extra money or extra PTO as a fun perk, in place of like, a lunch out. And for everyone saying, “well just do a gift card instead!” We’ve seen how well that goes over on this website–like a damn lead balloon (although I personally am open to like, all forms of gift cards). Besides which, it would be taxed, like any other monetary gift/compensation.

      ALSO–I’m not an idiot. I know that one day every April does not make up for the fact that I can’t pay all my bills without a crap ton of parent support, that my insurance benefits suck, that my colleagues have no idea of how heavy my workload actually is (especially when you consider the peanuts I’m paid with). I’m well aware of the gendered history of my role and that if a man held it, he’d get twice the salary and twice the accolades for doing half the work (he sure as hell would not be planning office baby showers or sending around a sympathy card and collecting for flowers even though that’s the culture in this office).

      BUT ALL THAT BEING SAID–No, I don’t actually think that we need to, “get rid of this patronizing day entirely.” In fact, given the low pay, gendered BS, and all the other condescending crap that admins typically have to deal with (including from other commenters here), I think that nuking a holiday for Admin Professionals would really just rub salt into the wound. It’s the kind of patronizing, high-horse, “impact doesn’t actually matter over intent” tomfoolery we see in some activist and social justice circles that are more concerned with what gives them fuzzy feelings (or looks good in a photo op) than the desires or concerns of the people they’re supposedly trying to help. 0/10 would not recommend.

      1. Rayray*

        Well said.

        I will just point out too that while people in admin jobs are often some of the lowest paid and least appreciated in general, a lot of offices would fall apart if the admin professionals were suddenly gone. I’m in a role that truly is one of the most essential in my company but is also one of the lowest paid. We need to line up coverage if you’re out for even a single day. This includes getting them access to your inbox and needing to meet to go over your workload. Not to mention thin you’re also expected to work ahead as much as possible to lessen the burden. Someone I know who moved from this team to another role where she said she has less work, less stress, and gets paid more and whe she was out for about 10 days her OOO reply was basically “I’ll respond to messages when I get back”

  28. Turtlewings*

    My main thought about LW1 is that it must be nice to just not care whether you’re going to get paid on time. :/

  29. Friends Not Food*

    Man, the 10-15 year thing is hard if you stay places a long time. I’ve had 4 jobs over the last 30 years. If I cut it off at 10-15 years, I’ve had 2, and one of those just barely!

  30. Hiding from my boss*

    Yeah, it’s really insulting to be mistaken for an admin. Imagine being one with women management regarding you as a separate species. BTW, higher-level women, how many of you have helped/mentored an admin in developing a career leading out of that cursed occupation?

    1. Dolphins*

      BTW, higher-level women, how many of you have helped/mentored an admin in developing a career leading out of that cursed occupation?

      Well I think I’d start by not referring to it as a “cursed” profession, first. If you’re the type of person who sees admin assistants that way, while bleating about how “there shouldn’t be any Admin Professional Day—just give them the pipe dream of Not Feasible Alternative instead!!” then uh thanks but no thanks. Just keep ALL your opinions about administrative professionals out of your mouth, please :-/

    2. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

      I do not regarded any occupation as ‘cursed’. Our team admin is more than happy in her job and has zero desire to move into the technical parts of IT. If she wanted to then absolutely I’d assist in a few courses/secondment to IT helpdesk but she’s seen what we deal with and wants none of that.

      We show our appreciation by paying her well, treating her as no different from the senior techs and REALLY appreciating the way she gets purchase orders through the system at record speed.

    3. Lenora Rose*

      Cursed?

      I’d rather be an admin than I would many of the higher level roles, to be honest. The only cursing comes when inappropriately treating NON-admins as admins, usually based on gender or other assumptions, or people who choose to treat admins badly by paying them badly or insulting the work they do.

      Do you think you are helping *any* of those issues?

  31. Hiding from my boss*

    I do not see admins that way, but i think plenty of other people do and the occupation doesn’t get the respect it should, given that “professional” women are insulted to be mistake for admins.

    And on this and other subjects, i AM entitled to my opini0n. no one has to agree with it or even pay attention to it, but i am entitled to it.

Comments are closed.