About Tardy Employees

Most commutes to work are uneventful and pretty routine. But every once and a while, life decides to shake things up. A fender bender will cause the morning rush hour to be a little more heavy than usual. Or the public transportation that normally gets you to work 20 minutes early, breaks down, while en route. These random kinds of incidents cannot be avoided, so an occasional tardy is imminent. But when you have an employee who is habitually late because he always seems to find himself in a traffic jam or he is always destined to choose the bus that is need of repair, it may just be that his integrity and time management need to be mended.

Significance

Dealing with a late employee can be very frustrating for an employer, and the frustration can lead to a loss of productivity that will then lead to lost revenue. So in an effort to keep a business running smoothly, there should be strict rules pertaining to absenteeism and tardiness. The rules should be documented and they should be the same for everyone, so a tardy employee will know the consequences of his actions.

Warning

Some employers tend to turn a blind eye when one of his stellar employee's continue to walk in 15 minutes late. But a professional atmosphere should be promoted at all time, and being punctual is professional. While bending the rules for certain employees is very unprofessional. In addition, just because an employer is turning a blind eye to the tardiness of a favored employee, the rest of the staff is paying close attention.

Effects

Making exceptions will cause tardiness to become as contagious as the common cold. If the tardiness of one employee is handled with kid gloves, other employees will start displaying kid behavior and begin showing up late too. So an employer may believe he is doing his business a favor by ignoring the tardiness of a valued employee, but if his tardiness begins to affect the behavior and productivity of other employees, his value will soon diminish.

Prevention/Solution

Using attendance and punctuality as a factor into wage increases may be another way to get an employee to work on time. That said, docking an employee's paycheck for tardiness, may also work. If the employee can actually feel the impact of his tardiness in his wallet, then he may get his act together. In addition, offering a flexible start time to employee's may be a solution to habitual lateness.

Considerations

At the end of the day, it is the employer's responsibility to let his employee's know what is expected of them. Having the rules and guidelines of timeliness spelled out in a job description garners the most success because this leaves no room for error. Also, the same rules can be applied to everyone--no exceptions. If employees are allow to be late three times in four months, then when they exceed that they should be reprimanded accordingly. If employers make exceptions for one person, they must make exceptions for everyone, and if this happens then there is no need to have rules in the first place, and it is the business that will inevitably suffer.

Resources

• More about tardiness
• Information about late employees
• Employee tardiness