What Is Pencil Whipping?

Pencil whipping means hastily signing off on work orders or other tasks that have not been properly completed. This can increase the risk of equipment breakdowns, inventory issues, safety hazards, and more for your organization.

Some common tasks that suffer from pencil whip include Preventive Maintenance (PM), inventory checks, shipment sign-offs, safety inspections, and training certifications.

Where Pencil Whipping Happens in Maintenance

These are the common maintenance activities where pencil whipping occurs, along with reasons management should cut pencil whipping in these areas.

1. Safety Checks

Safety checks are especially prone to pencil whipping. That’s because they’re repetitive and happen frequently (often weekly, or even daily), so technicians may find them tedious and be eager to finish them quickly. Of course, improper safety checks can pose major hazards.

2. Scheduled Checks

All scheduled checks are vulnerable to pencil whip. When employees use equipment regularly and without apparent issues, they may assume that the equipment will pass inspection. That assumption can lead to cutting corners by hastily performing or skipping inspections. As technicians repeatedly pencil-whip the same equipment, those assets can go weeks or months without actually receiving proper inspection.

3. Inventory Checks

Warehouse employees may find inventory forms to be tedious, daunting, or both. Whether intentionally or by accident, team members acting carelessly can cause delays, impact budgets, and trigger stockouts. Repeated miscounts can significantly impact operations, customer satisfaction, and KPIs — not to mention the reputation of your company.

4. Training Certifications

When an experienced new employee joins your team, does management require them to undergo training certifications for tasks they already know how to perform? If not, you’re pencil-whipping their training. If they’ve proven their competence, this may seem harmless to managers — but a compliance assessor would disagree. Bypassing training certifications could even land you in legal trouble.

Warning Signs and Examples of Pencil Whip

In maintenance departments, look for the following patterns:

• Unusual check speed. Experienced technicians may work quickly, but some speeds are unreasonable. Look for lengthy checklists finalized in a matter of minutes.
• Identical completion times. Did one technician complete four work orders with the same time stamp? That’s a sign that something isn’t right.
• Skipped fields and checklist items. Blank spaces on maintenance checklists indicate that a tech ignored essential steps.
• Copy-pasted comments. When you see the same note in every checklist field, or across multiple checklists, it’s a sign that someone rushed inspection or skipped it entirely.
• Recurring issues on checked assets. Say an asset keeps breaking down, but all the safety checks and inspections seem positive. Inspect the work orders closely to spot inaccuracies.

Why Is Pencil Whipping a Problem?

Pencil whipping may seem harmless. But if the practice becomes commonplace, it can snowball, causing serious problems for your organization. For example, inadequate inspections can result in unexpected and costly repairs, missed deadlines, low-quality products, and angry customers. At worst, pencil whipping may even lead to catastrophic equipment failures that put employee safety at risk.

If left unchecked, pencil whip can also cause problems related to regulatory compliance, employment termination, expensive fines, or even legal trouble. Employers can criminally prosecute employees whose actions result in serious injuries. Impacted third parties may also seek legal damages. That’s why it’s critical to detect and eliminate pencil whipping.

What Causes Pencil Whip?

Pencil whipping occurs for a variety of reasons ­— and typically, worker laziness isn’t one of them. Read on for the leading causes of pencil whipping.

Overworked Employees

When too few workers are assigned too many tasks, they often prioritize based on what they think is most important. This can result in pencil whipping the work they perceive as low priority or low risk. Work order software is an excellent way to streamline workflows and automate recordkeeping, freeing up more time for your employees to complete all their scheduled maintenance tasks.

Ineffective Management

Technicians and other workers involved in preventive maintenance work should know why they are completing the tasks assigned to them — and conveying this is the responsibility of maintenance managers. Work order software allows for the creation of customizable templates that describe exactly how and why specific work should be completed, helping your employees stay informed and up-to-date on shifting priorities while ensuring common standards are followed by everyone.

Pressure for Metric Improvement

Workers may feel pressure to hit what they feel are unattainable performance metrics or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), sometimes leading to pencil whipped work orders. With work order software, your company can automatically audit and analyze all maintenance activity, helping you identify potential areas of improvement, as well as set realistic and achievable goals for your maintenance team.

Work Culture Problem

No matter the cause, if pencil whipping is a common practice at your company, it can quickly spread, leading to breakdowns, lost productivity, and wasted money. That’s why processes must be put in place to ensure your workers have the tools they need to easily complete and document all of their preventive maintenance work. With work order software, employees can quickly submit electronic signatures, fill out customizable forms, keep track of their maintenance tasks, and more.

How To Avoid Pencil Whip in Your Organization

The best way to prevent pencil whip is to encourage responsibility, transparency, and feedback from all your employees.

When workers know exactly what’s expected of them, have the resources they need to complete their tasks, and have the tools to easily communicate with management, they are more productive, feel more valued, and are less likely to turn to pencil whipping.

Reassess or Remove Quotas

Imagine you’re trying to meet a quota for work order completion, incentivized by a bonus or raise. Would you take your time to complete every task thoroughly? Or would you rush a little — especially at the end of the day, end of the week, or near the cutoff time for your quota?

Unrealistic quotas may cause your employees to rush through their tasks. Some may consciously skip steps to save time, while others may do so accidentally. Unfortunately, when it comes to safety and uptime, it doesn’t matter why they skip steps. The consequences are the same for your assets, facilities, employees, and third parties.

Ask Employees About Pencil Whip

Empower your employees to report pencil whipping. You might hold all-hands meetings, create a system for anonymous tips, or speak with employees one-on-one. Your workplace culture will dictate the best approach.

Be direct but understanding with any employees found to be pencil whipping. Give them the opportunity to correct their behavior and improve. This demonstrates to your team that it’s okay to make mistakes as long as you take accountability.

Conduct Random Checks

To prevent pencil whipping or catch it early, implement random checks on equipment and assets. Pull up recent checklists and compare them to your live inspection. At best, everything matches, and your equipment is safe. And at worst, you catch something that prevents a critical failure.

Trust Your CMMS Software

Checklists may show thorough inspection, but when real-time data flags a potential failure, you know something isn’t right.

Powerful work order software, which is included with a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) like eMaint, makes managing your maintenance team a breeze. With all information organized and accessible in real time from any smart device, managers can quickly identify and address potential shortcomings in current maintenance practices.

Pencil Whipping Creeps In, But You Can Prevent It With the Right CMMS Software

Combating pencil whip with the help of work order software will help your organization quickly and correctly carry out critical maintenance tasks, thus maximizing the productivity and effectiveness of your maintenance team.

Plus, with the robust reporting capabilities of eMaint CMMS software, you get peace of mind knowing you have accurate, up-to-date records that are compliant with any relevant standards. That’s because with work order software, every activity is documented and time-stamped electronically, allowing easy retrieval in the case of an audit.

By increasing asset uptime, decreasing unplanned downtime, minimizing maintenance expenses, and automating recordkeeping, work order software quickly pays for itself.

Don’t wait, get eMaint to easily ensure your work orders aren’t pencil whipped today.