Why are managers asking IT to fix employee disciplinary problems?
Management and HR sometimes try to delegate employee attendance and disciplinary issues to IT by requesting technical workarounds, such as logon hour restrictions or withholding laptops, instead of addressing the personnel problems directly. This forces IT staff to field management issues that do not require a technical solution, shifting accountability away from where it belongs.
What the numbers show
Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count
- This comes up 119.9× more often in r/ITManagers than across the site as a whole.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Implementing logon hour restrictions in Active DirectoryDid this help you?
- 2Using auditing tools, firewall logs, or activity reports to track employee presenceDid this help you?
- 3Checking door badge-in/badge-out logs or security camerasDid this help you?
- 4Setting screen lock policies and tracking unlock event timestampsDid this help you?
- 5Adjusting time clock settings to prevent early clock-insDid this help you?
- 6Pulling computer and audit logs to provide evidence of inactivityDid this help you?
- 7Using screen timeouts and timestamps to document behaviorDid this help you?
- 8Gathering badge reader data from facilitiesDid this help you?
- 9Using technical controls like AD logon restrictionsDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Has anyone ever had to restrict logon hours? The company I work for has a couple problem staff that are likely to be terminated. But they have to go through all the write up process. They have been arriving to work at 6am clocking in, then dipping to Starbucks across the street and coming back an hour or two later.”source ↗
“My leadership has asked me for IT help and the only solution I can come up with is the logon hour restriction.”source ↗
“Instead of HR and managers doing their job, their bright solution was to come ask me if I could stop giving out laptops.”source ↗
““We’re having a personnel problem and want to prevent people from logging in to work” is a new one for me, even from the space cadets in HR.”source ↗
“What is setting a login hours restriction going to do? Obviously this isn't an IT problem, and HR and/or the manager doesn't want to deal with this themselves.”source ↗
“Stop entertaining management problems unrelated to IT. Where is their manager from 6am to 8am?”source ↗
“source: I have shown my true powers and regretted it”source ↗
“My leadership has asked me for IT help and the only solution I can come up with is the logon hour restriction.”source ↗
“This doesn't seem like a technical problem to me.”source ↗
“More importantly, is this a problem for IT to solve or a problem for HR to solve?”source ↗
“Good lord, this is a problem that doesn't require a technical solution.”source ↗
“It's a management problem but they're asking you to build a technical fence around it, seen that a dozen times”source ↗
“I have a policy where we don't change IT settings for management issues like this”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 4My manager passes all their stress down to our team
- 7What to do when half your team quits and isn't replaced
- 4Employee onboarding workflow for small teams
- 22Why is project management just doing admin and updating trackers?
- 2What skills do you need to move into HR leadership?
- 2Why is my entire day eaten up by meetings and micromanagement?