Employee playing games at work

shaunhouse

The essential work has been completed yes but absolutely no reason to spend 50% of time playing a game during work time. Tons of work that needs to be done that has been set while I’m away.

To make doubly sure I made employee aware of this in an email on Tuesday.

shaunhouse

JCS1 wrote: »

Whatever you do, make sure you follow correct procedure, so you need to investigate before deciding if to invite the person to a disciplinary.

Have legal in place to give advice for this very reason. Will be speaking to them when I get back

getmore4less

What incentive did you offer over normal remuneration for running the company?

McKneff

How do you know ?

Carrot007

shaunhouse wrote: »

The essential work has been completed yes but absolutely no reason to spend 50% of time playing a game during work time. Tons of work that needs to be done that has been set while I’m away.

To make doubly sure I made employee aware of this in an email on Tuesday.

Then that is different.


Doing whatever when there is nothing to do is one thing. Doing nothing when there is work to be done is not reasonable.


So yes, do something, what depends on how much of a valued emplyee they are.

Guerillatoker

shaunhouse wrote: »

The essential work has been completed yes but absolutely no reason to spend 50% of time playing a game during work time. Tons of work that needs to be done that has been set while I’m away.

To make doubly sure I made employee aware of this in an email on Tuesday.

If he has got all your essential work done whilst playing games, he must a pretty effective employee. Perhaps the proper solution would be to offer increased pay for doing more work, with a stern warning that you'd rather he worked for a bonus than play games?

He may be an employee, but he should be fairly rewarded for his labour. Do extra work, get paid extra.

(I know this won't be a popular viewpoint on this forum)

shaunhouse

It’s not extra work, what I am saying is he has got the bare minimum done that has to be done otherwise we’d have big issues. All the other work is expected in working hours.

It’s a quieter week because we are coming to the end of the month

I don’t pay people to sit on computer games and that certainly isn’t what happens when I’m in the office!

Guerillatoker

Don't you think you're being a bit of a slave driver? You may not pay people to sit on computer games, but you do pay them to do something and by your own admission that something has been completed. If they have no incentive to go over and above, then why should they? The alternative could also be giving employees a small ownership stake so they have a benefit in the company performing better.

However, I could certainly understand punishment for installing a computer game onto your work computers, that would be worthy of a disciplinary in my eyes, but I also think you should consider your network's security if you are giving employees access to install .exe files.

shaunhouse

Do I think i’m Being a bit of a slave driver expecting employees to work when they are at work?

No.

When did it become normal for employees to go to work and not work?

I pay the employee an hourly wage and expect him to do the work that I set.

50% of the time on computer games is an unjustifiable amount of time in anyone’s eyes. I’m paying for that 50% of game time.

Guerillatoker

Do you pay your employee for his time or for his labour? It should be the latter, but I presume you think it is the former.

What you're effectively saying is, if he completes more work than he is employed to complete, you should receive all the benefit of that whilst he should be happy that you are benevolent enough to let him work for you. It is not about what is normal, it is about what is fair, which I suppose is subjective.

Though I still advise a disciplinary for installing .exe files on your computer systems, unless you have your employees using their own machines.

I am curious to know the answer to this question posed above:

getmore4less wrote: »

What incentive did you offer over normal remuneration for running the company?