What is Buddy Punching and How Do You Stop It?

“Hey! Will your clock in for me today? I’m running a bit late.” This message is one that many employees have sent to a coworker that they’re friends with. This is buddy punching – one employee signs another one in. While they see it as helping a friend out so that they don’t get in trouble, it is essentially stealing money from the company.
Here are some shocking numbers from the American Payroll Association:

• 75% of companies are victims of buddy punching, resulting in lost money
• Employees lie about working about 4.5 hours per week that they didn’t really work
• Buddy punching makes up 2.2% of gross payroll on average

So, what can your company do to make sure that you aren’t losing money due to buddy punching? Get an effective time tracking solution like the payroll time clocks from Fingercheck. There are a number of options to choose from, including fingerprint time clocks, facial recognition time clocks, and RFID card time clocks. What’s unique about these time clocks is that the verification when clocking in is unique to each employee. That means no clocking in for friends and no lost payroll due to buddy punching. Start saving your company money today!