Working Time Monitoring by Corporate Investigators

There are numerous types of suspicion that can make an employee review necessary. Estimates suggest that around 40 percent of workers engage in business-damaging behaviour with criminal relevance at least once in their lives. In addition to the theft of company property, corresponding offences primarily include fraudulent acts such as expense-claim fraud, continued-pay fraud, and working-time fraud. In the following, we will focus in more detail on the latter by examining the issue from the perspective of our investigators' long-standing experience.

As a general rule, our seasoned Zurich detectives obtain legally admissible evidence of unlawful behaviour by employees: +41 44 5522 264.

What Does the Employee Do When They Feel Unobserved? | Nationwide Surveillance by Our Zurich Detective Agency

Employees are not always reliable and loyal. The group most likely to commit fraud in reporting working hours or completed work consists of field staff. During off-site activities, the supervisory function that naturally exists for in-house staff—due to the presence of the employer, management, or department head—is absent. This lack of supervision offers dishonest employees ample opportunity to deceive their employer. Our specialised Swiss corporate investigators know the tricks employees use and understand how to document their dishonest behaviour in a way that stands up in court.

Two Subtypes: Overtime Fraud and Commission Fraud

In the vast number of different construction trades—bricklayers, installers, electricians, and many others—“cheating” on time records appears to be a daily occurrence. The employee allegedly stays longer on the construction site to “finish off a few things” but actually drives home shortly after the others have left. The employer – and, during invoicing, also the client – is presented with a record showing several hours of overtime. As the employer, you may be puzzled that only one employee is doing overtime; your client will be annoyed about a high invoice and may not recommend you further, believing the work to be inefficient. In addition to financial loss, there is thus the risk of damaging your reputation. In such a case, surveillance of the suspected employee is recommended to prove the misconduct in detail.

The same applies to another form of fraud in work documentation: If the field employee is a sales consultant paid on a commission basis, a high volume of orders leads to a corresponding income, meaning the employee naturally has an interest in profitable orders. In such cases, the employee may tend to “enhance” customer orders – for example, turning an order of 30 items into 50. If this happens only occasionally, the customer may be surprised but generally not resentful and might not even complain, assuming it was a mistake. However, if such incidents accumulate, clients will turn away from your company because they feel deceived. To prevent it from reaching that stage, contact our Zurich detective agency via kontakt@kurtz-detektei-schweiz.ch or our contact form.

Field Staff on Fixed Salary: Profitable Idleness

As the third form of working-time fraud, we examine employees on fixed salaries. They document customer visits that never occurred in order to fill up their timesheets and additionally claim travel expenses, allowances, and more. Meanwhile, they occupy themselves with leisure activities or an (unauthorised) side job, perhaps charging car repairs to the company as expenses or burdening the company’s postage account with private mail costs. By observing the suspected employee, this inactivity and the resulting immediate financial damage can be proven.

When it comes to working-time fraud, field staff have many opportunities to deceive the employer, as demonstrated by the cases handled by our corporate investigation team in Zurich. We are happy to advise you on the most appropriate research and surveillance measures for your specific case. Call us on +41 44 5522 264 and describe your situation without obligation. We will determine the optimal approach for the given scenario and document the suspect’s disloyal behaviour in a legally admissible investigation report.