Clocking cases – Paid leave for six years?!
If you could not go to work and still get paid, would you? In this Clocking Cases, we look at Joaquín García, a Spanish civil servant who didn’t show up to work for six years!
What happened?
Joaquín García began working for his local authority in the south-western city of Cádiz in 1990. In 1996 he was promoted, and his job became to supervise a wastewater treatment plant.
At first, Joaquín showed up daily to his new job, however, when office politics became an issue, the civil servant realised he was in a perfect loophole – as both the city council and water board both thought the other side was managing him.
Basically, he played Mum off against Dad. And like a sneaky teenager going out on a Friday night – he got away with it.
A court found Joaquín had not occupied his office for “at least six years” and had done zero work between 2007 and 2010.
Garcia was fined €27,000 (£21,000), the equivalent after-tax of one year of his annual salary. But the company, and city he was contracted to support, ultimately lost more.
The lesson learnt
With a clocking system, even a 1990’s punch model, Garcia would have been discovered quicker.
In today’s world, with the help of biometric clocking technology such as fingerprint scanners, you can make sure 100% that your employees are where they say they are.
You can enable Citadel clocking for your employees for just £2.50 per month.
Find out more about our clocking systems here.
Any questions, or if you’d like to request a free online demo to see how clocking in with Citadel could work for you, call 01761 410015, email us or click the chat icon.
