What This Subject Is Not

"Time theft" is a framing, and framings carry assumptions. These are the ones worth rejecting.

Not a measurement

Six categories, two measurable, one unmeasurable in principle without surveillance that is disproportionate.

Any total is therefore partly invented, and presenting one as a finding is the thing that gets challenged first.

Not evidence of dishonesty

An anomaly has seven ordinary causes.

A timestamp cannot distinguish a choice from a fault.

Calling it theft in a letter raises the bar you then have to meet.

Not a productivity measure

Presence is not output, and minutes at the edges say nothing about the work between them.

Not a reason to monitor activity

The category that would require it — personal tasks during paid time — cannot be measured proportionately.

Which means the surveillance would be disproportionate by construction, whatever the framing.

Not one-directional

The same records show unpaid time, and in most measured operations that figure is larger.

A policy that counts one way has made a choice, and everyone subject to it can see which.

Not a technology problem

The largest recoverable share sits in arrangements: a terminal location, a queue, a break room walk, a rota notice period.

None of it is addressed by a purchase.

Not always wrong

Deliberate, repeated, corroborated misconduct exists, and taking it seriously is what makes the rest of this credible.

The four tests distinguish it, and applying them is most of the work.

What the subject actually is

A set of arrangements that produce minutes at the edges of shifts, in both directions.

Measurable in part, fixable mostly by design, and occasionally a conduct matter.

Treating it as that is both more accurate and more effective than treating it as a loss to be recovered from a workforce.

The framing costs something

Worth naming, because it is usually invisible to whoever chose it.

A term that names one direction shapes what gets counted, investigated and reported.

It also tells the workforce what the organisation believes about them, before any policy is applied.

Which is why the same arrangement described as "getting the records right" produces different behaviour from one described as tackling time theft — with identical rules underneath.

Turn the boundary into a test

For a concrete product reference, compare this resource-planning case can help turn this boundary into a test. Verify the current behaviour with representative fields and record what reaches the destination.