Unit 7 Assignment essay

Unit7 Assignment

Part1

Answersto questions from the video with regard to computerizedtimekeeping Computerized timekeeping assists in eliminating thetime that would have been lost during the manual time keeping. It isvery time consuming for the payroll managers to sum up all the hoursworked by the hourly workers during the pay period (Cornick, 2012).The situation becomes even tougher when there are exceptions to beconsidered. The exceptions may include unpaid breaks, overtime, andabsences. Computerized timekeeping takes into account all theseexceptions. For example, the paralegal has to include only thebillable hours. That is, the hours when he did things that are in hisline of work like looking into cases. It also eliminates the chancesof forgetting about how much time was spent on each activity or task.The employee can clock in and out on the computer station (Cornick,2012). The timesheet does not use any punch card. The system tracksall the hours worked every day. With just a click, it can giveupdated data on the total hours worked. In case the payroll managerwishes to know the gross pay, s/he can just click a button and obtainthe values. Computerized timekeeping therefore helps in saving thetime needed to process payrolls during the pay time (Cornick,2012). Computerized timekeeping also has its disadvantages. In caseof data breech, the valuable employee records can be exploited byunauthorized people like identity thieves. Data theft is even morecommon in timekeeping systems that use Wi-Fi. It can also lead toworker concerns where the system employs a practice commonly referredto as time-shaving (Cornick, 2012). This practice can lead tosignificant reductions in the billable time for employees. In case anemployee carries out different tasks before recording them, theemployee may forget what amount of time was used in doing whichparticular work, like in the case of the paralegal. This can becostly to the employee as some hours may get lost. It may also becostly to the company where the employee chooses to add the timeunaccounted for to other billable duties, even if the time was spenton a non-billable activity (Cornick, 2012). Dante is faced withan ethical dilemma since he has forgotten what he did at what time.Using a computer software could have greatly helped in preventing theethical issue. The software could have tracked Dante’s time as hewent about his duties. Therefore, he could not have had the task oftrying to remember what he had done during the whole day (Pearson,2016). If time records are prepared properly in advance, it can bevery essential in managing the time spent in each case. The paralegalcan also easily and properly keep the records of proper supervisionof a case. Knowing that each time spent on supervising the case willbe paid can help in boosting the morale of the paralegals. As aresult, cases can be diligently worked upon and handled. Forinstance, if Dante had prepared a time schedule before embarking onhis daily duties, he would know which case to work on and how muchtime to spend on it (Pearson, 2016). Since he has failed to rememberwhat he spent his one hour and thirty minutes, he is trying todistribute it to the duties he remembers by reconstructing his timeso that he can account for 8 billable hours. By doing this, he isbreaking the workplace honesty rule. He is not being honest to hisemployer about the time spent on every case. For him to avoidbreaking this rule, he should accept the mistake as his and bear theconsequence of losing the possible billable time he cannot remember.He should then develop a schedule that he will strictly follow in thefuture (Pearson, 2016).

Employee Timesheet

Employee Timesheet

References

Cornick,M. (2012). Usingcomputers in the law office.Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Cengage Learning.

Pearson.(2016). Fees and Billing: Contemporaneous Timekeeping. PearsonEducation, Inc. Available athttp://mediaplayer.pearsoncmg.com/_ph_hsml_cc_set.title.Fees_and_Billing:_Contemporaneous_Timekeeping__/ph/streaming/careers/2013/mylegalstudieslab/case_studies/Fees_and_Billing_Issue_Contemporaneous_Timekeeping.m4v