The People Bulletin

A quick internet search will reveal a whole host of excuses employees have used for being late. The most popular include failing alarm clocks and problems with public transport. However, there are some rather imaginative excuses out there too from the employee’s dog being sick and elaborate traffic incidents. While researching for this piece, a few of The People Bulletin’s favourites have included: 

• there was a fire while making breakfast;
• my pet fish had heatstroke;
• my husband thinks it is funny to hide my car keys; and
• I thought it was Saturday.

However, while the odd 10 minutes here and there may not seem like a lot this can quickly add up. 

Counting the cost

In order to understand how lateness can affect an organisation’s bottom line, let’s look at the example below from Mitre Finch.

Company X has 150 employees.

10% of their workforce (15 employees) is persistently late to work by 10 min.

Their average hourly pay is £7.00 ph.

If we presume that there are 232 working days per year, multiply this by the number of late employees and their lateness expressed in pounds the company could be losing £4043.76 per year

Add to that the lost productivity, extra overtime costs occurred when covering workload and the order value of the contracts lost due to delays in delivery and you get a clear picture that punctuality management procedures should be implemented by companies struggling in the era of cost reduction initiatives.[1]

Set out clear policies

In order to deal with habitual lateness it is essential that there is a clear lateness policy. The policy should set out:

• The required standards of timekeeping – including normal work hours, shift patterns, flexi-time and flexible working arrangements.
• The consequences of persistent lateness.
• The details of any disciplinary action that could be taken.
• How timekeeping will be monitored and by whom.
• How the missed time will be recuperated.
• How lateness should be reported.

This policy should be communicated to all employees and enforced fairly across the organisation. According to research by the University of Manchester a typical 35-year-old is late about once a month, rising to between three and four times a month if their employer has a lax policy on lateness.[2]

Be fair and flexible

Employee lateness may be a sign of a deeper problem. If an employee is regularly late it could indicate a problem concerning hours, working relationships or a problem managing their commitments at home. It is worth discussing these informally with the employee before taking more formal action, as it may be simple to resolve by introducing a flexible working arrangement.

Taking disciplinary action 

Normally a quiet word with the employee should suffice. However, once your policy has been followed it may be necessary to pursue disciplinary action and possibly eventual dismissal.

 For advice on creating fair policy and procedures see the Acas code of Practice.

Have you heard any extravagant excuses for being late? Why not share them on our LinkedIn group.

[1] www.mitrefinchblog.co.uk/absence-management/3-important-ways-of-dealing-with-employee-lateness/

[2] http://repec.org/res2003/ClarkK.pdf