A new timesheet policy being rolled out at KPMG U.K. is causing a little ruckus between employees and management.
From The Guardian:
KPMG has angered UK staff by threatening them with £100 fines if they submit their paperwork late.
The accounting company said it would impose the penalties if staff were late to file their time sheets, which record how long employees spend on tasks.
In a statement, KPMG said it is “aiming for a 100% on-time completion rate and have informed all colleagues why timesheets are important.”
The firm also said, “Like any professional services business, it’s important that all of our people complete their timesheets on time, so that we can accurately track our revenue, record our work for clients, and plan our resource effectively.”
Employees will not be penalized if they miss a timesheet deadline for being sick or are out of the office for other reasons, KPMG said.
Now, no one at the firm has been fined for this … yet. But if fines are issued, KPMG is really going to hit staff where it hurts the most:
[The fine] would come out of an employee’s bonus – leaving more in the bonus pot for other people.
And that’s not sitting too well with Klynveldians, according to the Financial Times:
Employees at the firm have responded angrily to the measure, with several staff in its consulting division complaining about being treated like children by an overbearing parent.
But according to The Times, the policy will apply only to repeat offenders who have failed to submit their timesheets more than four times.
Maybe KPMG employees would be less pissy about this if the other Big 4 U.K. firms had similar policies. They don’t, according to The Guardian:
EY said: “EY has a culture where people understand the importance of submitting time sheets. In the event that people do not submit their time sheets, EY takes steps to reinforce its policy; this does not include a monetary fine or locking people out of the system.”
Deloitte said it used email reminders; PricewaterhouseCoopers said that if time sheets were not submitted within a certain period, they would have to be authorised by the employee’s manager.
Having never worked in public accounting before, is this policy much ado about nothing, or is it really extreme? I know timesheets suck, but being out £100 (or roughly $127), to me, would suck even more.
