Get them to work on time
My wife’s mad at me
According to a survey by CareerBuilder in the US, 25% of workers admitted to being late once a month, whilst 12% say it’s a weekly occurrence. The excuses that people came up with ranged from the usual “The car wouldn’t start” ; “The train was cancelled” , etc. to the totally bizarre. Our favourites were: “I forgot I worked here and went to my old employer” (which they’d left five years ago) and “My wife was mad at me she froze my truck keys in a glass of water in the freezer” .
British problem too
In the UK there’s a similar issue with tardiness - 590,000 people turn up late for work every day, with each latecomer losing 97 minutes per month. This costs the UK economy £9 billion. Consider this example: Acom has 50 staff, five of which are regularly late and lose those 97 minutes per month, which together is 485 minutes/month or 5,820 minutes/year (97 hours/year).
Early bird
Introduce a new policy requiring staff to arrive ten minutes before they are due to start.
Trap. The problem with this is that you could fall foul of the Working Time Regulations 1998 , which require that staff should be paid whenever they are “working at their employer’s disposal and carrying out activities or duties” .
PR disaster. This is what got Sports Direct into trouble - they were not paying staff for the time spent in “checks” after shifts had finished, which in turn led to a breach of the national minimum wage rules. The firm was also reportedly taking 15 minutes’ pay from wages for those who were a minute late. If staff had agreed such a deduction, it is not unlawful. However, you need to think about what is fair as well as any potential negative PR from disgruntled employees.
Tip. Make sure that staff are aware of your policy on lateness, as well as the times they are required to be at work. Reserve the right to deduct pay for late arrivals, e.g. make it clear in contractual literature and via the staff handbook etc. that for every, say, 15 minutes late, you reserve the right to deduct an appropriate sum from salary. However, use your discretion. Instead of harsh deductions from pay, ask staff to make up the time lost.
Small penalty
82% of UK staff felt tardiness is unprofessional, whilst 74% felt guilty when they didn’t show up on time. What’s more, 48% had the feeling that colleagues thought less of them.
Tip. Get the whole office involved in a fining system. Try £1 in the kitty (placed in a prominent position) for each morning when someone is late, which at the end of the month will be donated to charity.
Be careful. You need to take care when dealing with this issue. Remember that many employees are single parents and if you discriminate against them it could end in trouble. Sometimes you also have to trust your staff. In a 2014 survey one respondent had used the following excuse: “There was a zebra running down the highway and I got held up in traffic” . It turned out this was true.
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