[quote=Marcia Malory]Of course they can. Anyone can get preoccupied and miss a little popup box or click on the wrong item (team) in a dropdown box.[/quote]
Yeah, i wasn't sure if the popup was too obvious to ignore or something that could be easily overlooked.
I thought there were regular popups that contractors had to click on when they are logging time, which is why i found it hard to believe that contractors could be oblivious about logging time for hours on end.
[quote=Marcia Malory]They should delete the entry after they realize they've made the mistake, however.
Contractors get an email on Sunday telling them that the work week is ending, and they should check their work diaries, so it's also possible that a contractor is planning to review everything then.[/quote]
To be honest, i don't think i have had one correct their own timesheets yet, and i have been hiring on odesk for years.
[quote=Marcia Malory]How frequently are you checking? Are you giving the contractors time to delete these entries before you catch them? [/quote]
Well,i don't usually check the work diaries at all. except for the hours logged per job. I used to check them a lot, but i don't like to micro manage these days.
Usually when i find a contractor that has been logging hours on facebook or surfin the web, i go back to the previous weeks diaries and i usually find the same thing.
They just didn't get caught last week because they delivered a reasonable amount of work, so i haven't checked the diary.
But then again, i may have contractors who have corrected errors in their time logging without me knowing, as i don't know if it shows up anywhere for me to see.
[quote=Marcia Malory]Erm, what are you paying your contractors? If you're not paying much, it's understandable why they would try to get away with padding their hours.[/quote]
Well it varies from country to country and skill set, but i make a note not to put an hourly rate on a job posting or negotiating a different rate during the interview.
I would rather a contractor tell me what they charge per hour and run with that.
This particular contractor in question is from the Phillipines and costs $6 per hour.
As for the padding of hours, i don't mind too much especially on small jobs that don't take much time, so i understand when they pad the hours a bit to make it worth their while to do that particular task. as long as i'm getting results for my money i'm happy.
The problem with this approach is that contractors think i don't check the diary at all because i haven't noticed the few hours here and there. Then they seem to get carried away and try for 5 to 10 hours on a 1 hour job, And then i check the diary and ask them to explain....
That's when i always get the accidental logging excuse.