I used to work for a consulting/contracting company, with 6-10 reports at any given time. I was responsible for reviewing and approving their time sheets.
Except that, due to the nature of the business, I didn't see or even communicate with most of my reports on a daily or even weekly basis. They were working on different projects under different contracts for different customers in different locations. My manager responsibilities were an add-on to my own near-full-time billable work.
I raised my personal concerns to my own manager(s) that I did not feel that I could confidently and truthfully review and approve my reports' timesheets. Their response was effectively "just go with it, it's the way it works". Basically I was told to rubber stamp them with my name as the approver.
I don't necessarily believe that anyone was maliciously abusing the system, but I definitely believe that casual and hard-to-prove overbilling was a regular occurrence.
Except that, due to the nature of the business, I didn't see or even communicate with most of my reports on a daily or even weekly basis. They were working on different projects under different contracts for different customers in different locations. My manager responsibilities were an add-on to my own near-full-time billable work.
I raised my personal concerns to my own manager(s) that I did not feel that I could confidently and truthfully review and approve my reports' timesheets. Their response was effectively "just go with it, it's the way it works". Basically I was told to rubber stamp them with my name as the approver.
I don't necessarily believe that anyone was maliciously abusing the system, but I definitely believe that casual and hard-to-prove overbilling was a regular occurrence.
I don't work there anymore.