How to Make Sure Your Employees Don’t Forget to Clock In and Out

This is a chapter in our ultimate guide to clocking in and out for employers. To continue learning after you finish this post, use the links on the left (desktop) or bottom (tablet/mobile) to navigate to the other chapters.

When employees are lax about clocking in or out, it can make it difficult to accurately calculate their pay. And while it may be tempting to simply dock an employee for work time that they forgot to log, this isn’t an option.

According to FLSA laws, employers must compensate employees for the hours that they worked regardless of whether they clocked in or out. The responsibility of maintaining accurate timesheets for staff members ultimately falls on employers.

However, it is possible to get your employees to feel some responsibility for maintaining accurate records of the times when they work. In this chapter, we’re sharing our best tips on making sure your employees don’t forget to clock in and out via processes, reminders, carrots, and — in extreme cases — sticks.

Why employees forgetting to clock in and out is a problem

An employee who neglects to clock out can accrue dozens of hours of unearned pay and/or overtime. And while it might seem like you’d definitely notice someone who was clocked in for multiple days at a time, sometimes these mistakes can slip through the cracks.

Here’s a look at what happens when an hourly employee forgets to clock in or out.

• Guessing games begin: When an employee forgets to clock in or out, the difficult task of determining how many hours they worked that pay period begins. You’ll likely have to take your employee’s word for it when they tell you what time they arrived at or left work.
• Payroll could be inaccurate: Since determining the accurate times is often a matter of guesswork, this could result in an employee’s pay being inaccurate as well. Work hours could be inflated or even deflated, which can create FLSA compliance problems.
• Time is wasted: Trying to determine what time your employee actually clocked in/out costs time. Ensuring accuracy, checking for discrepancies, reviewing security footage to verify start and end times — these tasks add up. 
• Mistakes compound: If your employees get away with being lax about clocking in and out, they’ll gradually come to take your time tracking policies less seriously — and that attitude might spread among your team members.

Common reasons why employees forget to clock in and out

Before we jump in to our tips for helping employees remember to clock in and out, it’s helpful to understand the most common reasons why employees forget to punch.

• Distractions at the start or end of shifts: Employees may get caught up in conversations, tasks, or urgent work responsibilities and forget to punch in/out.
• Rushing: Employees who are running late or eager to leave may skip clocking in/out.
• Unclear policies: If your procedures for clocking in and out are not clearly communicated, employees may be unsure when and how to log their time. 
• Forgotten devices: For field employees using a mobile time clock app, forgetting their phone at home will prevent them from clocking in and out.
• Emergencies: Employees who have to leave unexpectedly due to an emergency or to pick up a sick kid may forget to clock out because they had other things on their minds.
• Routine interruptions: Changes in an employee’s usual schedule or work location can disrupt the habit of clocking in and out.
• Fatigue or stress: Busy or overwhelmed employees may overlook this step, especially during high-pressure periods.
• Time theft: As discussed above, forgetting to clock in and out may also be an attempt to get paid for hours and minutes when the employee wasn’t actually at work.

Taking the time to identify the reasons why your employees forget can be helpful in determining which of the tips below will make the biggest difference in inspiring diligent timekeeping behaviors.

9 tips to make sure employees don’t forget to clock in and out

If you want to inspire diligent time tracking, implement one or more of the tips below to significantly minimize the likelihood of your employees forgetting to clock in and out.

1. Have a written policy

The first step toward ensuring that your employees remember to clock in and out is by making sure your company’s clock in and out policy requires them to do so.

A policy can also help you protect yourself in cases of noncompliance since you’ll be able to follow a written procedure with escalating consequences that your team is aware of thanks to their employment contract.

Ensure that all of your employees have received, read, and signed this policy.

2. Emphasize the importance of clocking in/out

While it’s obvious to you that clocking in and out is key to employees getting paid properly, your employees might not inherently understand that, particularly if you’re hiring people who have never had a job before.

If you help them tie the action of clocking in and out to something they care deeply about — their pay — they’ll be much more likely to find their own inspiration to follow the rules.

3. Put up “remember to clock in and out” signs

If your employees all work on-site, you can hang up a “remember to clock in and out” sign in a locker room or somewhere else employees always go before starting their work.

You can make something yourself to print out and hang around the office, or you can buy pre-made signs to hang on the wall, stick to laptops, or sit on desks on sites like Etsy, Office Sign Company, Compliance Signs, and Redbubble.

4. Set up clocking in and out notifications

If you’re using a time clock app that has employee scheduling, you or your employees can set up clock-in and clock-out reminders for the beginning and end of shifts. These can come as email on in-app notifications and can remind employees who got distracted to go back and clock in/out if they forgot to.

5. Set up location-based notifications

Some time clock apps with GPS tracking will remind employees to clock in when they arrive at a specific location — and to clock out when they leave that location. This can be great when your employees work off-site and wouldn’t be in the office to see a “remember to punch” sign.

However, keep in mind that this functionality requires the app to monitor employees’ locations 24/7, which is illegal in some states. Before implementing this type of tracking, it’s important to consult with an employment attorney to fully understand what’s allowed in the locations where your employees work.

6. Clock employees in and out automatically

Some time clock apps have features that will let you clock employees in and out automatically at the beginning and end of their shifts. This can be a simple solution if you want to just pay employees for all of the time they’re scheduled to work — it’s a bit like paying hourly employees a salary for hours scheduled.

However, this feature does have some disadvantages. One, if you automatically clock employees in and out, it won’t account for times when they weren’t actually working because they were late for work or left early.

Second, if you automatically clock employees out and they continue working, you could be in violation of FLSA laws. So if you’re going to implement automatic clocking out, you need to be confident that employees understand you’re doing it and know not to work one minute longer than they’re scheduled to work.

7. Use productivity tracking software

Some time clock apps have productivity tracking features that give you and/or your employees a timeline of all activities done on a computer while clocked in. This doesn’t help if an employee forgets to clock in, but it can help you and the employee determine when they stopped working if they forgot to clock out.

8. Offer incentives

Sometimes, your team just needs a little bit of incentive. Offering a reward to staff members who remember to consistently clock in and out can encourage and motivate your team to make more of an effort.

You could enter everyone who adhered to the process into a raffle for a nice prize at the end of every quarter or hand out small coffee gift cards at the end of every month to everyone who didn’t have any timesheet mistakes.

9. Consider disciplinary actions

Disciplinary action is something we consider to be a last resort, but if you’re having trouble getting your team to take accounting for their work hours seriously, you might have to escalate.

Consider having a verbal warning, followed by a written warning, then suspension, and — in extreme cases — termination.

Your clocking in and out policy helps when it comes to taking disciplinary actions because it should detail exactly what will happen when employees fail to follow the policy.

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What you’ve just read is only a single chapter in an entire guide to clocking in and out for employers. If you want more tips, use the links on the left (desktop) or bottom (tablet/mobile) to navigate to the other chapters and continue learning everything you need to know to set up an effective time-tracking system for your business.