This is what frustrates good employees - when management forces them to be bad!

[Five Star]

A district in the Eastern Region (one that I know of, but it may be wider spread) is ordering their employees to falsify their timecards! That's right - outright falsify. Now, they'll never admit that and they'll just call it "creative management" but what would you call this situation?:

Management has been ordered to severely limit OT on Mondays and Saturdays or managers will receive warning letters. So managements response? They tell all of their people who work OT on Mondays and Saturdays to "Not mark the day as 'day off' on their timecard", but instead pick another day of the week to mark as 'day off'. Now the absolute absurdity of this or course is that most couriers only work 4-5 hours on Saturday. So they get to mark Wednesday as their day off and get 8-10 hours of OT! Good deal for the employees, but if FedEx feels that this is good business management then we'll all be out of a job in a year.

So in order for station and district management to make themselves look compliant, they tell their employees to not mark their timecards correctly. They don't actually save any money (and in the case of Saturdays, actually spend more), but they are keeping themselves from getting fired. If that is not the company's definition of "falsification" I don't know what is.

I asked a manager to put this directive in writing for me.... I'm sure there is no need to tell you how that went.

 

[MrFedEx]

A district in the Eastern Region (one that I know of, but it may be wider spread) is ordering their employees to falsify their timecards! That's right - outright falsify. Now, they'll never admit that and they'll just call it "creative management" but what would you call this situation?:

Management has been ordered to severely limit OT on Mondays and Saturdays or managers will receive warning letters. So managements response? They tell all of their people who work OT on Mondays and Saturdays to "Not mark the day as 'day off' on their timecard", but instead pick another day of the week to mark as 'day off'. Now the absolute absurdity of this or course is that most couriers only work 4-5 hours on Saturday. So they get to mark Wednesday as their day off and get 8-10 hours of OT! Good deal for the employees, but if FedEx feels that this is good business management then we'll all be out of a job in a year.

So in order for station and district management to make themselves look compliant, they tell their employees to not mark their timecards correctly. They don't actually save any money (and in the case of Saturdays, actually spend more), but they are keeping themselves from getting fired. If that is not the company's definition of "falsification" I don't know what is.

I asked a manager to put this directive in writing for me.... I'm sure there is no need to tell you how that went.

This sounds like blatant falsification. It's hard to believe that any manager would be stupid enough to direct an employee to lie about which day they took-off that week. Is there any employee out there dumb enough to actually do what they are asking? As hard as this story is to believe...I DO, because you can't make this stupid up.

 

[Ricochet1a]

Actually more common than you think.

What is going on is what many call, "Management by Report". That is, they manage to make a particular report look good, while KNOWING that the report doesn't 'catch' the 'get around' that is going on to keep things moving while doctoring up reports for district and regional level to consume.

The big issue in regards to OT right now is 6th day OT - they want to minimize it. Now, unless a station has adequate staffing, there will be 6th day OT no matter what a manager does- they have to fill all the routes that need running to make service - or else some OTHER REPORT will look really bad.

In addition, district and regions are looking VERY CLOSELY at 6th day OT incurred on Mondays and Saturdays. This is why all the scheduling rearranging has been going on in stations around the country. Full-timers are being moved to Saturday to eliminate 6th day OT there, then full timers that work Monday as a regular scheduled day are being forced to run pickup routes (incurring OT for going over 8 hours - but that doesn't show on the report that has 6th day OT - classic Express in motion). I've had managers call it a never ending game of 'Whack a Mole'.

When things get really nasty, is when staffing is real low and stations FORCIBLY reschedule people to have a day off in the middle of the week. There isn't a whole lot wage employees can do about it. Many non-4x10s are being forced into having a day in the middle of the week as one of their 'scheduled days off' - meaning they have Sunday off, then a weekday OTHER than Monday off.

Region level management thinks that by forcing station level management to Manage by Report, they can eliminate these particular expenses and improve profitability. The reality is that while forcing this on station level management, they are also making replacing Couriers which quit/transfer a very difficult proposition. See, another report shows total employees in a station, and they think that by restricting replacements, they can cut costs that way too.... It is all part of the madness of Express.

Now, management telling employees to NOT mark Monday (or a Saturday) as their scheduled day off gets into questionable territory. Management does have the option of FORCING someone to take a scheduled day off whenever they want - not a damn thing an employee can do about it. But when a printed schedule has been made, THEN management starts playing footloose - problems arise, not just internally for FedEx but also in regard to labor law.

I was told of a specific instance where an employee did indeed work 6th day OT - had management alter their time card to show that particular day wasn't 6th day, then let the week's time cards go through and the employee didn't get paid OT for that day in question (and the station report didn't show any 6th day OT). That employee brought up the issue once they got their pay stub, and the manager in question 'sheepishly stated they made a mistake and corrected it'. What really happened is that this particular senior manager DID NOT want that particular OT showing up on a report for 6th day OT. By altering the time card, the report run for that week was 'clean'. Then later on (after correcting it and the employee getting their OT premium), no re-run of the report was made. It was willful falsification of an internal document by a senior manager - all done so he could have a 'clean' report (knowing that there would never be a 're-run' of that week's report at a later date which would reflect the correction made to the employee's time card).

This is actually just the tip of the iceberg. There is a hell of a lot more going on that wage employees don't even see or hear about. Express management knows that they have to 'toe the line' to keep their jobs more now than ever before.

​If your manager's lips are moving, assume they are lying unless you or they can prove otherwise...

 

[MrFedEx]

Actually more common than you think.

What is going on is what many call, "Management by Report". That is, they manage to make a particular report look good, while KNOWING that the report doesn't 'catch' the 'get around' that is going on to keep things moving while doctoring up reports for district and regional level to consume.

The big issue in regards to OT right now is 6th day OT - they want to minimize it. Now, unless a station has adequate staffing, there will be 6th day OT no matter what a manager does- they have to fill all the routes that need running to make service - or else some OTHER REPORT will look really bad.

In addition, district and regions are looking VERY CLOSELY at 6th day OT incurred on Mondays and Saturdays. This is why all the scheduling rearranging has been going on in stations around the country. Full-timers are being moved to Saturday to eliminate 6th day OT there, then full timers that work Monday as a regular scheduled day are being forced to run pickup routes (incurring OT for going over 8 hours - but that doesn't show on the report that has 6th day OT - classic Express in motion). I've had managers call it a never ending game of 'Whack a Mole'.

When things get really nasty, is when staffing is real low and stations FORCIBLY reschedule people to have a day off in the middle of the week. There isn't a whole lot wage employees can do about it. Many non-4x10s are being forced into having a day in the middle of the week as one of their 'scheduled days off' - meaning they have Sunday off, then a weekday OTHER than Monday off.

Region level management thinks that by forcing station level management to Manage by Report, they can eliminate these particular expenses and improve profitability. The reality is that while forcing this on station level management, they are also making replacing Couriers which quit/transfer a very difficult proposition. See, another report shows total employees in a station, and they think that by restricting replacements, they can cut costs that way too.... It is all part of the madness of Express.

Now, management telling employees to NOT mark Monday (or a Saturday) as their scheduled day off gets into questionable territory. Management does have the option of FORCING someone to take a scheduled day off whenever they want - not a damn thing an employee can do about it. But when a printed schedule has been made, THEN management starts playing footloose - problems arise, not just internally for FedEx but also in regard to labor law.

I was told of a specific instance where an employee did indeed work 6th day OT - had management alter their time card to show that particular day wasn't 6th day, then let the week's time cards go through and the employee didn't get paid OT for that day in question (and the station report didn't show any 6th day OT). That employee brought up the issue once they got their pay stub, and the manager in question 'sheepishly stated they made a mistake and corrected it'. What really happened is that this particular senior manager DID NOT want that particular OT showing up on a report for 6th day OT. By altering the time card, the report run for that week was 'clean'. Then later on (after correcting it and the employee getting their OT premium), no re-run of the report was made. It was willful falsification of an internal document by a senior manager - all done so he could have a 'clean' report (knowing that there would never be a 're-run' of that week's report at a later date which would reflect the correction made to the employee's time card).

This is actually just the tip of the iceberg. There is a hell of a lot more going on that wage employees don't even see or hear about. Express management knows that they have to 'toe the line' to keep their jobs more now than ever before.

​If your manager's lips are moving, assume they are lying unless you or they can prove otherwise...

Amazing how low they will go to "make the numbers". What a cluster from Hell. Report falsification is nothing new, but this is crossing into new territory. When I used to run the SDR operation, the first thing the manager training me attempted to do was have me cook the numbers on all of the reports. No way. He had to come-in and run them himself, and it eventually caught up with him, but only when they were hunting for his head. Until that point, it was all overlooked because it made the station and district look good. Satan has a company he runs here on Earth...it's called FedEx Express.

 

[hypo hanna]

I hope there is a whistle blower out there willing to make a call to the department of labor. DOT might be interested as well.

 

[Cactus]

This is not surprisingly a big problem. When you have an idiot like Matthew Thornton ruling the operation with an iron fist and not really knowing what he's doing this what you get.

Fedex Express, the golden palace of falsification.

 

[MrFedEx]

I hope there is a whistle blower out there willing to make a call to the department of labor. DOT might be interested as well.

That's a great point. Giving the DOT false information as to when people are actually working or not should be a big problem.

 

[code 019 at ur moms]

timecard fraud is on par with diesel as far as keeping the operation running where I am. nobody even expects you to even pretend that your codes have any relationship to your day whatsoever

 

[MrFedEx]

timecard fraud is on par with diesel as far as keeping the operation running where I am. nobody even expects you to even pretend that your codes have any relationship to your day whatsoever

Then the DOT needs to be contacted. FedEx is falsifying what you are doing/not doing, and we all know how many people are working through supposed "breaks". We also now know that they are arbitrarily changing days off, which indicates to me that they are lying to the DOT (and the employee) about when they actually are "on the clock" working and when they are "off-duty". This company is reprehensible.

 

[CJinx]

Time to blow the whistle. Playing fast and loose with hours of service can get someone killed. To say nothing of any mistakes made on modified time cards resulting in people losing an hour or two (accidentally or otherwise). Nobody should be monkeying around with these numbers.

 

[Ricochet1a]

Time to blow the whistle. Playing fast and loose with hours of service can get someone killed. To say nothing of any mistakes made on modified time cards resulting in people losing an hour or two (accidentally or otherwise). Nobody should be monkeying around with these numbers.

Every individual which 'has the goods' on Express (documentation which they can produce to prove their allegation of time card fraud), is in Express management.

NO ONE in management is going to 'blow the whistle' if they want to keep their job - NO ONE. Even a manager which is about to retire, won't blow the whistle, for fear of having Express blame THEM for falsification, then say to the DOT, "Thank you very much for alerting us to this rogue individual who was violating the law without our knowledge".

Corporations set up whistle blowers as being the actual culprits in wrongdoing, only 'blowing the whistle' in order to cover up THEIR OWN transgressions. It is a well known pattern - self described whistler blowers are painted as being the PRIME culprit in wrongdoing, they are only trying to protect themselves by 'tarnishing' the corporation with 'false allegations of wrongdoing'. Corporations don't reward individuals such as this - they get rid of them and try to pin as much blame on them (exonerating the corporation as much as possible), as the company can. Once an individual does 'blow a whistle', their career is over (if they do manage to protect themselves). They violated corporate culture - they will NEVER be trusted with anything again.

The only time when most 'right thinking individuals' will blow the whistle, is when they already know they can initiate civil litigation against the company themselves, WIN that litigation and exit with a healthy settlement which sets them up for the remainder of their life. Otherwise, they are merely killing their job prospects (companies don't hire individuals which they know 'blew the whistle' on another company - it would be lunacy for them to do so).

Its all analogous to the 'mob', where everyone has dirt on each other - which results in everyone staying in line and not trying to cut deals. I've written about how it is prudent for employees to keep 'journals' of events that occur which have something 'fishy' about them.... many managers keep journals too. They aren't idiots.

 

[!Retired!]

A district in the Eastern Region (one that I know of, but it may be wider spread) is ordering their employees to falsify their timecards! That's right - outright falsify. Now, they'll never admit that and they'll just call it "creative management" but what would you call this situation?:

Management has been ordered to severely limit OT on Mondays and Saturdays or managers will receive warning letters. So managements response? They tell all of their people who work OT on Mondays and Saturdays to "Not mark the day as 'day off' on their timecard", but instead pick another day of the week to mark as 'day off'. Now the absolute absurdity of this or course is that most couriers only work 4-5 hours on Saturday. So they get to mark Wednesday as their day off and get 8-10 hours of OT! Good deal for the employees, but if FedEx feels that this is good business management then we'll all be out of a job in a year.

So in order for station and district management to make themselves look compliant, they tell their employees to not mark their timecards correctly. They don't actually save any money (and in the case of Saturdays, actually spend more), but they are keeping themselves from getting fired. If that is not the company's definition of "falsification" I don't know what is.

I asked a manager to put this directive in writing for me.... I'm sure there is no need to tell you how that went.

Have you notified DOT of this?

 

[MrFedEx]

Every individual which 'has the goods' on Express (documentation which they can produce to prove their allegation of time card fraud), is in Express management.

NO ONE in management is going to 'blow the whistle' if they want to keep their job - NO ONE. Even a manager which is about to retire, won't blow the whistle, for fear of having Express blame THEM for falsification, then say to the DOT, "Thank you very much for alerting us to this rogue individual who was violating the law without our knowledge".

Corporations set up whistle blowers as being the actual culprits in wrongdoing, only 'blowing the whistle' in order to cover up THEIR OWN transgressions. It is a well known pattern - self described whistler blowers are painted as being the PRIME culprit in wrongdoing, they are only trying to protect themselves by 'tarnishing' the corporation with 'false allegations of wrongdoing'. Corporations don't reward individuals such as this - they get rid of them and try to pin as much blame on them (exonerating the corporation as much as possible), as the company can. Once an individual does 'blow a whistle', their career is over (if they do manage to protect themselves). They violated corporate culture - they will NEVER be trusted with anything again.

The only time when most 'right thinking individuals' will blow the whistle, is when they already know they can initiate civil litigation against the company themselves, WIN that litigation and exit with a healthy settlement which sets them up for the remainder of their life. Otherwise, they are merely killing their job prospects (companies don't hire individuals which they know 'blew the whistle' on another company - it would be lunacy for them to do so).

Its all analogous to the 'mob', where everyone has dirt on each other - which results in everyone staying in line and not trying to cut deals. I've written about how it is prudent for employees to keep 'journals' of events that occur which have something 'fishy' about them.... many managers keep journals too. They aren't idiots.

Unfortunately, you are probably right. Somewhere out there (maybe) is a "Deep Throat", a person with a conscience that puts ethics ahead of money. I suspect that the dirt at FedEx goes a lot deeper than just falsification, as in political chicanery, bribery...or worse. As long as Fred has his politicians lined-up and the law firm of Koch, Zucker, Frommell, and Dumas defending him, FedEx will still be able to "vigorously defend itself" while buying-off whistle-blowers and settling out-of-court.

 

[ProfitServiceProfit]

Just chiming in to say this is also standard practice in my district here in the Midwest.

 

[overflowed]

Just chiming in to say this is also standard practice in my district here in the Midwest.

Dudes? Are you serious? I would not do this. You basically have open power to get your whole management team gone. This is beyond what I thought ops would be capable of. The screws must really be turning on them.