Question

#2

I have several employees who are chronically late but not late enough to be docked pay-they punch in within four or five minutes after starting time. When the next shift comes in, most of these same people manage to be out of sight for the last 20 minutes of work, so they won't get tied up on anything and will be able to punch out right at quitting time. How should you deal with these employees?

Answer 1

In such a scenario of dealing with late employees, documentation helps in assessing the situation. The first step in documentation is identifying the reason for such behavior among the employees. The possible reasons could be unavoidable circumstances, traffic, child care, genuine reasons, bad attitude, poor time management etc

The documentation of the reasons is obtained from the employees exhibiting such behavior on a constant basis. Based on the feedback obtained from the employees for a fixed period, the employees are broadly categorized into employees with a legitimate excuse, employees having time management problems and employees with no excuse

Based on the classification of the employees as a result of documentation, the company should do all possible efforts to change the habit or behavior of such employees

In the case of legitimate excuses, a private meeting is scheduled with the employee and the consequences of coming late and going out at the right time with no sight during the last 20 minutes are explained. The employee attendance register should be used as a reference and feedback is obtained from the employee about the steps that the employee would take to solve the issue and any aid required from the company to solve such behavior is recorded and such employees are handled in this manner

In the case of classification based on poor time management problems, the employees are counseled on appropriate time management practices and steps are initiated to change their behavior or habit

In the case of classification based on no excuse, the employee is asked to follow the attendance standards followed by disciplinary action for non-compliance with the standards in employee attendance

Majority of the companies establish or include employee attendance standards in their human resource (HR) policies or employee handbook to guide the employees on the consequences and outcome of various situations such as the one listed above