City worker fired in time clock case (wpri.com)
An East Providence city worker has been fired and is in trouble with the law after police said they caught him on hidden camera tampering with a time clock.Observations:
Scott Cook, 50, of East Providence pleaded not guilty to one count of vandalism,a misdemeanor. Police said he used a ballpoint pen to scratch a biometric reader on a time clock at the city's Department of Public Works yard.
DPW employees are required to scan their finger when clocking in and out of work each day. City officials said the technology was put in place to clamp down on "buddy punching."
"[The reader] ensures the data collected by the device is linked to an individual which allows us to pay people with taxpayer money to a high degree of certainty it’s correct," said City Manager Peter Graczykowski.
♦ Fingerprint biometrics work well for time-and-attendance, delivering a substantial return on investment.
♦ Buddy-punching is a real problem, costing taxpayers and shareholders who-knows-how-much money.
♦ Local governments forced by declining tax revenues to tighten their belts see better ID management techniques as an attractive way to save money.
♦ Buddy-punchers don't like taking a pay cut.
See also:
What Human Resource Managers Can Learn from the President of Guinea's Move to Eliminate Ghost Workers (relevant to managing a transition from loose T&A policies, to more rigorous biometric techniques).
The Economics and Politics of Biometric Time and Attendance in State Bureaucracies
h/t @m2sys
