One day, it’s 10 minutes. The next, it’s 30 or 50.
Whether it’s bad traffic, oversleeping or caring for a sick pet, employees offer up lots of different excuses when they show up late for work. As the manager, you may overlook it the first time. But what if it becomes a pattern?
Employee lateness is a widespread problem that managers and business owners often have to deal with. A survey by CareerBuilder found that one in four employees admits to showing up late for work once a month, whereas 13% of employees say it’s a weekly occurrence. Managers say they hear all sorts of excuses: “A black bear entered my carport and decided to take a nap on the hood of my car.” “I was detained by Homeland Security.” “My hair caught on fire from my blow dryer.”
Employees who rarely arrive late to work should probably be given the benefit of the doubt—as there are valid reasons for being late. (Tires really do go flat!) But it’s generally in a manager’s best interest to confront employees who are frequently or always late.
Late employees can reduce business productivity, especially if they aren’t making up for lost work time at the end of their shifts. Moreover, employee tardiness hurts the morale and work ethic of other employees who might resent that the late arrivers aren’t getting called out or disciplined for their lateness. It might even encourage other employees to start showing up late to work if they see no consequence for the bad behavior.
But don’t despair. Businesses have many opportunities to boost the odds that employees will show up when they’re supposed to. So if you want to learn more about how to deal with employee tardiness in the workplace and discourage employees from arriving late, keep reading.
Use a time clock.
Wondering how to motivate employees to come to work on time? It may seem old-fashioned or like you’re micromanaging, but a time clock holds people accountable. Employees will feel more compelled to show up on time if they know they’re being monitored with a time-tracking system or time clock. Time-tracking with a time clock or virtual program can help serve as a tool to record when employees check in and out for the workday. Time clocks can also help inform your employees about when they come and go.
Companies can buy a physical time clock that requires employees to punch in and out each day or, if the employees work at computers, time-tracking software can be installed that records when employees log in and out of their workstation.
Schedule a staff meeting first thing in the day.
Even if it’s a quick five-minute “check-in,” if employees know they are required to attend an all-hands-on-deck meeting with the boss first thing in the workday, they will have good reason to show up on time—or face questions about why they were absent.
Be clear and consistent about the rules.
If you’re not actively communicating that you expect employees to show up on time, they may think you don’t care if they’re late.
Make sure your employee handbook spells out the expectations about work hours and arriving on time and remind employees of those expectations on a regular basis, such as in staff meetings. Also, make sure the time expectations are enforced consistently across all employees—or you could be accused of favoritism or unfair treatment.
Having an established process for time tracking—such as using a time clock— will help ensure consistency.
Require phone calls.
Make it a requirement that employees who are more than 15 minutes late must call into the office. Employees are less likely to show up late if they know they have to discuss it with someone.
Institute penalties for being late to work.
Depending on your workplace culture and Federal and state employment laws, you may want to create penalties for employees who show up late to work more than, say, once per month. If you’re wondering how to write up an employee for being late, start with a warning letter or email. But if that doesn’t work, you might require them to make up for missed work time at the end of their shifts.
You might consider docking employees’ pay for tardiness but you’ll want to consider labor laws on being late for work. Many states allow employers to dock the pay of employees classified as nonexempt—those who qualify for overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours per week—as long as those employees are given advance written notice of penalties. Salaried employees classified as exempt—meaning they do not qualify for overtime pay—cannot generally have their pay docked under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act rules.
Also, an employee’s paycheck cannot generally be docked if their hourly wage would effectively drop below their state’s minimum wage by doing so.
Of course, any time you create penalties, there can be concerns of unfair treatment. Make sure the consequences of tardiness are spelled out clearly in advance in writing, such as in the employee handbook. Then carefully and consistently enforce those rules as required by law.
Make punctuality part of the employee performance review and compensation.
If you’re not sure how to reprimand an employee for tardiness, you may want to consider discussing it in their annual performance review. Perhaps even make it a performance goal for employees who frequently have trouble showing up on time.
By formalizing it as part of the review process, there should be no question that it’s an important part of their performance evaluation.
Timeliness can also be factored into their compensation. Consider tying punctuality to the raises or bonuses. For example, employees who are never late may receive an extra bonus amount, whereas those who are late more than once per month or week receive little or no bonus.
Create a reward program for punctual employees.
Offer rewards—whether an extra day off or a $50 gift certificate to a popular restaurant—for employees who show up on time to work every day for, say, six months straight. Those who are chronically late will not be rewarded in this program. This could help reinforce that being punctual is a key workplace goal.
However, you will need to track punctuality carefully if you’re offering such rewards to avoid being accused of errors or favoritism.
Talk directly to the chronically late employee.
Wondering how to handle tardy employees? Once you’ve tried hands-off approaches to encouraging punctuality, you may still have an employee or two who pushes the envelope on punctuality. In these situations, you’ll need a more direct approach.
Sit down privately with the employee. Let them know you’ve noticed they’ve been regularly late to work and ask them to explain why. (It’s possible they have a personal reason, such as caring for a child before the school day—in which case it may make sense to discuss setting a different work schedule for that employee or creating another workaround.)
Stress to the employee the importance of punctuality to the business’ success and to being part of the team. Remind them that employees are required to arrive to work on time.
Ask them to come up with an action plan for arriving to work on time. Rather than enforcing penalties, it can be more effective to make the employee responsible for correcting their behaviors. They know better than you do why they are persistently late to work, so they are better positioned to find a solution.
Ultimately—if all other strategies fail—you may have to consider taking more severe measures with a chronically late employee who doesn’t respect your punctuality rules. If the employee underperforms due to their lateness and continues to show up late, you might consider whether that employee is worth keeping around altogether.
Remember that a manager’s job is keeping employees motivated to work hard—and an employee who consistently breaks the rules is only going to hurt morale.
View Comments (101)
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You're welcome, Stacey!
I am an employee who always shows up late. I have most of my life. Here's the thing. Owners of companies don't really think about anyone else's lives but themselves. I understand they have an important life and they need to get their work done, But did you know that every single employee they have has a life too? That's right. Outside of work employees have lives. They do things like raise a family, or maybe have some important side projects going on. The point I'm trying to make is that, me working for someone else will never be #1 on my list. You hire me to do a job. I do it. I do it well. It shouldn't matter if I do it at 10a.m. or 5p.m. When you take your car to a mechanic, Do you tell them I want my car ready by 9:00am. No you don't, because you know what they would say.
Of course. We all have things that are important to us. Working is high on the list. When we interview, we discuss things like: what the job entails, what we expect from our staff, what times we expect them to be there, dress code, long hair put up if long (food related), breaks... Once the applicant agrees to all that, we expect them to work as we have asked them to do. If the applicant has kids or has no car or has to walk to work from 5 miles away, I have to know that before making a decision about hiring. If the applicant understands and agrees to work as we need, then that's what we expect. I can't hire someone and not have talked about these things. If the applicant did not disclose this when interviewing and was late all the time when I needed him to open at 6:00, well, he might not work for me very long.
Also, this idea that everyone who owns their own business is rich and sitting behind a desk counting minutes is just absurd. I've been in business for over 10 yrs now and live paycheck to paycheck. I own a single location cafe and it is TOUGH! I need and expect my employees to be at work, and to work as directed or they don't work for me. I agree to pay them for the work I described and as I schedule. Child is sick, call me well before time to open so I can find someone who is not scheduled to work to come in and take that spot. Car won't start, call me and I'll come and get you. Have an appointment to go see the doctor, tell me in advance and we'll work around it.
Communication about attendance policies should be discussed in employee meetings. I believe grace periods should be applied in certain business settings. As well as rewards for those who follow policy.
It will create a trend in the workplace. Encouraging employees and staff to reach for punctuation and productivity. I agree totally that schedules should be kept and employees should be prompt with attendance. I also know that life happens. And most situations are non controllable. Calling when you’re going to be 15 minutes or more late is very important. It gives management time to regroup until the arrival of the late employee. God for bid an employee gets into a wreck because they are speeding to get to work.
Thank you for sharing, Lew!
Good approach and well articulated.
Thank you! We're glad you liked it.
One thing that should not be over looked is how well does the employee fit with the team. Are they kind? Thoughtful? Is the only issue promptness? You choose what/who fits best with your office. You can decide if maybe a pay incentive is needed to get them coming in on time!
I don't believe being habitually late is kind or thoughtful to your co-workers or to your employer that hired them to do a job and to work from this time to this one. A pay increase to be on time? I don't think so. As soon as that got out, everyone would start being late, waiting for a new wage. This is a bad idea. There should be a special discussion about what is expected in ALL working situations at the time of interview so that there is no misunderstanding and for the expectation of the worker to the employer. Get to work on time and start working on time and until you get off each day.
I am an owner of a customer service based company. My CSR Manager is always late. I am not talking 1 or 2 minutes but anywhere from 1 to 50 minutes late 36 days of 61 days of work. So, they are late more than 1/2 the time they are supposed to be at work. Their start time is 9:45 am Tuesday - Friday and 7:45 am on Saturdays. They only work 8 hour days. It does not matter when I schedule their start time, because they will be late no matter what. The good thing is that they are always at work and they do their job very well. They have been written up recently. Although, that is not helping. I am a firm believer that because they are in a manager position, they need to make a good example for the team members. I would appreciate any advice on how I can manage my CSR Manager when it comes to getting them to work on time.
Maybe a pay incentive will help the employees be more prompt.
Aha, the performer who flouts the rules. I love this topic. Here are some thoughts:
1 – Have rules, stick by them, write up the employee when the rules are broken. Warn, suspend, terminate. Rules are there for a reason and no one – manager or staff – is special.
2 – Make sure you communicate each time there’s a rule violation and document. If it comes time to terminate this should be no surprise to the employee.
3 – Don’t be afraid to terminate. No one is irreplaceable. Despite the media reports, there are plenty of good people around if compensate fairly (or even better than fairly).
4 – Remember that this manager is disrespecting you, your company and their colleagues. Their behavior is not fair to others.
A guy I work with is late soo much the company changed his clock in time from 7:30 to 10am. The manager punished him with 4 days off and no pay. But upper management overruled it and gave his time back to him. How is this allowed? We service a fortune 500 company. Resentment and poor moral is in full swing.
I have a employee that has been with me for a long time. She is a good worker but always comes in late. I have talked to her and it does not help. She also likes to work 30 min later, That way she can call in the next morning and be 30min late due to traffic, or her power out, or truck not starting. This is a family owned business with a total of 3 employees: My Dad, Me, And her. I would feel by enforcing new rules it would look like we are singling her out. We are in TEXAS and I am aware that we are a "right to work" state and not sure of the things that we can do for this. She has 2 weeks of vacation and within the first 20 days of January she had already used them all up. I feel as if she is a manipulator of the rules. Please any help would be appreciated.
Welcome to 2022 where the most important workplace word is: FLEXIBILITY.
You write that she’s a good worker. So I’m assuming she has value to you and your business. And that you’re profiting from her work. Also, let’s take into account that good workers are in short supply right now.
Which means that I think it’s you that has to accommodate her. And that may not be such a bad thing, particularly if you’re demonstrating how much you care about having her as an employee.
So here’s what I would suggest.
-make her hours as flexible as you can
-agree on specific deliverables that she should be delivering as part of her job.
-monitor how she’s doing and give her constant feedback.
If she’s doing what you need and you are getting value from her work then giving her a little more flexibility may not be such a big deal.
Also remember – there’s only 3 of you so it’s not like you have to create a formalized policy for a large workforce. One of the benefits of being a very small business is that you can be flexible.
Hope this helps.
I just took over as a supervisor on my shift at work. I have an employee that has been late for work in the last year and was written up for it prior to me taking over. She is experiencing a very big personal tragedy in her family and has been struggling with dealing with it. She was late this am but only by a few minutes but it was seen by everyone. I don’t wanna pile on and write her up however the expectation of our dept if you’re late you get a write up. I talked to her about it and she understands and expects a write up but I still don’t think this is the right course of action today. Any advise?
Yes. Work with her. I think that one of the biggest benefits of working for a small business is that there’s less bureaucracy and more flexibility for employees and I think you should help her take advantage of that. Hopefully she will repay that in loyalty going forward. Also, when other employees understand why you’re being flexible I think they’ll also appreciate the benefits of working for you.
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