Sometimes fixing one small problem creates a much bigger one.

So when one engineer watched HR decide to crack down on a time-stealing colleague by forcing the entire office onto a strict clock-in system, engineers who had been quietly underreporting their overtime started logging every minute.

That’s when “accountability” suddenly cost the company thousands of hours of free labor.

Keep reading for the full story.

HR didn’t want to have an awkward conversation with a couple of people so we all get extra days off.

The company I worked for had a quite old-fashioned attitude to the workplace.

The workforce was divided into “boiler suits” and “suits” or “workshops” and “office.”

Their approach was actually pretty classist.

They regarded office as educated, professional, and honest, and workshop as stupid, half-***sed, and petty thieves.

This was not a view I agreed with.

This employee’s previous company had been a lot more progressive.

I had come from a company where everyone from janitor to general manager was treated the same and could have an input.

If something went wrong in design or manufacturing, it was often the guy working the machine or fitting the parts who spotted it and came up with the correction.

In my new place, the office would not accept input from workshop unless they really, really had to.

Workshop had to clock and account for every minute, whereas office were on the honor system.

Employees had their own way of accounting for their time.

We were trusted to input our own hours, and we usually just entered our 8 hours per day despite often working more—sometimes a lot more—because we were professional in our work ethic.

In my old place, everyone clocked. It was no big deal, but suggesting that it happen here was like suggesting that office workers were untrustworthy.

But one colleague in particular stood out.

Then there was Bob.

Bob turned up about 8:30 and left about 3:30 and somehow still managed to log 8 hours per day.

We had a half-hour lunch break (we could extend it but had to log it and work the time back).

On the other hand, Bob took a much more lax approach.

He took long lunches of about an hour or so.

He was also a heavy smoker, and about three to four times an hour Bob would pop outside for a smoke.

Everyone knew about Bob, including HR.

We knew that Bob was on shaky ground for a while because his working hours were getting shorter and shorter while still being charged at 8 hours.

From this employee’s perspective, this should have been an open and shut case for HR.

Something had to give.

HR had an easy job: have a word with Bob and get him to work the hours he claimed, put him on an RA (Remedial Action Plan), or else fire him for mis-accounting hours.

But HR decided to take a much more circuitous route.

Instead, HR decided to instigate a new policy that everyone on site would clock and would have to account for their hours on site.

At no point did HR actually talk to anyone in the office.

They just seemed to come up with this plan based on what they thought went on.

This plan was met with mixed reviews.

Engineering were generally happy with this, although a few did grumble about honor and trust.

HR just shrugged their shoulders and shifted the blame onto the European Working Time Directive and said that it was the new normal, nothing we can do… honest.

You don’t b******t engineers because we like rules, and sure enough, some of the engineering team researched it and found out that HR were just using EU law to railroad through a new process.

That’s when the malicious compliance came in,

We did need to record worked hours, but nowhere did it say we had to use an electronic clocking system to do it.

The old system fulfilled the requirement of the law just fine.

The new clocking machines were fitted in every entrance to the office block.

We were all given swipe cards and training on using the new system.

We could have pointed it out to HR, and indeed some people tried, but the decision had already been made and they pushed ahead with it.

We all knew what was coming, and we continued on as normal, waiting for the end of the month.

Then the numbers came in and spoke volumes.

At the end of the month, the project billing controllers went nuts.

While one or two people were genuinely stealing time from the company, the rest of us were under-accounting for our time.

Engineering were on a flexible working day. As long as we did core hours and our 8 hours, then we were OK.

Anything over 8 hours was banked and at the end of the month was either paid as overtime or flexi time.

I nominally started at 7 a.m., but I was usually in by 6:40.

We worked to the job, so I could leave at 3:30, but it was often closer to 4.

Most of us were the same, but we usually just rounded to an 8-hour day.

The company ended up losing out on a lot of free work.

Suddenly the projects lost 3–4 hours of free overtime per person per week.

With an office of around 300 people, that is a ****load of time, and that had to be paid as OT or banked as flexi as per our contract.

One or two managers suggested that we just adjust our time to the previous hours, but falsifying clocking hours was gross misconduct and a sackable offense.

They went back in their box pretty quickly.

HR told us to log our time accurately, and so we did.

HR still claimed they were following the law, but the engineers still weren’t buying it.

HR refused to back down because “EU law,” which we knew was rubbish, and so the productivity figures went down, in some cases by over 10%.

Costs went up as we had to be credited with all the extra time, and so we all got at least a flexi-day per month that we never had before.

Thanks, HR.

All you needed to do was have a word with Smoky Bob and his like and all would be well.

But because you wanted to avoid an awkward conversation, we all get extra holidays. WOOHOO.

Some people really shouldn’t be left in charge.

What did Reddit think?

This commenter thinks workers everywhere deserve better.

It’s possible HR was actually the hero of this story.

Bob was actually the catalyst to some pretty transformational change.

Doesn’t everyone want to be paid fairly for their time?

HR’s actions may have seemed like an overstep, but as redditors pointed out, it may have been a blessing in disguise.

In this day and age, no one should be forced to work for free.

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