Dealing with Chronically Tardy Employees

Getting late to work can happen to anyone - even you. There are too many external factors out of our control, like traffic or weather, but moreover, sometimes we all have our mornings when nothing goes as planned.

Yet, there are some employees who somehow manage to be late all the time. And of course, they have an inexhaustible number of excuses. From their bus being late to their kid flushing down their car keys or being kidnapped - trust me, employers around the world have heard some quite unimaginable ones. But no matter the reasons, the effect constant tardiness has on the business is enough to have you concerned.

Effects on Business

Tardy employees affect your business - the smaller the business, the bigger effect it has. Imagine owning a small retail shop with one worker in the first shift. They're in charge of opening the shop at 9, but since they're late, they might meet a line of customers in front of the shop doors waiting for them to open. Now imagine that situation happening for one, two, three days… A week… After a while, you will have no one waiting as your once loyal customers leave you for another retail business that keeps up with their expectations. You know what they say - bad news travel fast. Your business unprofessionalism will cost you customers and reputation.

Effects on Team Culture

Having a team member who is constantly tardy creates tension within the team. That always-late employee makes it hard for them to work on their assignments, when they need to crunch extra work to cover for them. It gets even more difficult if that employee is in charge of an important part of a project. They can't move forward without the input of a person who is not even there! This is especially true for small teams, as everyone has an important task.

Other employees might also get frustrated if constantly tardy workers get away with being late. After all, they're getting on time every day, doing their job properly - and yet, getting the same treatment. This sets your other employees a bad example, as if getting on time isn't important.

How to App to Log Time Can Be a Game Changer

Being aware they're constantly late, your employees might reach out to different methods of covering that up. One of them is time theft. By trying to falsify their timesheets or asking coworkers to punch in for them, they want to make you believe they got on time. While at first glance this doesn't seem to be troubling for your business, the fact that it costs you money might change your perception.

A study shows that an average employee steals around 4.5 hours per workweek. Now do some math - those hours round up to 6 workweeks per year. Well, that's more than annual vacation time!

The best method of time theft prevention is automatic employee clock in software. This software keeps track of attendance that cannot be modified the way a paper timesheet can. Some online time management software, such as Workpuls , calculates employee clock-ins and outs by their first and last mouse and keyboard activity. Furthermore, since you know how to track PC activity with software, it can't be cheated by buddy punching. App to log work hours creates productivity data based on each employee's activities on tasks and projects, so you also gain insight into how much time they actually spend working.

Set Expectations

App to keep track of hours worked is important for combating tardiness, but you also need to implement a policy regarding lateness. Policy should contain your expectations regarding working hours and breaks - when are your employees expected to clock in and out? Then, it has to be addressed who they should report to if they know they can't get to work on time. And, since they're late, should they make up for that lost time by staying overtime? In the end, it's also important to address the consequences they might bear if they're chronically late.

The policy is important, as it makes it clear that every employee is treated the same and that rules exist to be respected. This policy should be enforced; otherwise, it has no actual weight.

In Conclusion

Employee tardiness should be dealt with proactively - you've seen how it can affect team culture, and easily snowball your business. Make it clear to your team that there is no such thing as being fashionably late to work.