How Should I Handle Employees Abusing Flexitime Without Increasing Attrition?

Hi All,

I need your help on a very urgent basis. I am working with an IT company. We have general timings of 9:30 - 6:30. Some of the employees stay late due to official work like client calls, etc., and we have given them flexitime to come in late.

However, some other employees are taking undue advantage of it; they arrive at 10 a.m. and leave promptly at 6:30 p.m. Even after repeated reminders, they continue to be tardy. I have informed them that we will deduct their salary after two late arrivals, but they seem unconcerned.

I am in a dilemma; if I deduct their salaries, they might spread negative word of mouth and potentially resign, which would increase the attrition rate. On the other hand, if I don't deduct their salaries, they will likely continue the same behavior. Please advise.

Hope the so-called Project Leaders and Project Managers are not part of this latecomers' cartel. Some suggestions:

1. Identify the teams and ask Project Managers to hold team meetings twice or thrice a week in the morning.
2. Make adherence to company policies and rules a part of their appraisal and assign high weightage for these.
3. Institute a reward for the Project Team/Department for adherence to time.

Hope others will provide some more ideas...

There are two ways to handle this problem:

1. Either you give them overtime.
2. Issue them a warning letter first. If this works, then okay; otherwise, you have another alternative, i.e., suspension pending an inquiry letter.

I do hope this will help you out.

Regards

Hi Dipali,

Every organization is illuminated by their disciplined staff, and it is inevitable for everyone on the premises to adhere to punctuality. You should emphasize the following points to handle latecomers:

1. Give them a verbal warning. If they continue to be late, issue a written warning and keep it for future reference or inquiry.
2. Post a notice on the notice board about fines for latecoming.
3. Post the names of latecomers on the office notice board if they persist after receiving a warning letter.
4. Implement a punctuality policy, such as conducting punctuality surveys every three months, recognizing punctual individuals with certificates, and offering fringe benefits like family movie tickets (for 2 people only), match tickets, and family food and beverage vouchers (for 2 people only).
5. Delegate the authority to the project head, who will be the accountable person for late team members.

I hope this helps you address your issue effectively.

According to my knowledge, punishing employees is not a quality of a successful HR personnel because anybody can do it. We must analyze the problem and evaluate alternatives. Additionally, we have to solve these types of problems based on employees' psychology.

1) Why couldn't you provide other benefits to the employees who come on time daily?
2) You may ask them politely and continuously about their lateness.
3) A simple trick: Close the door after 10 minutes past the designated time but allow them into the office; don't send them back. By doing this daily, the employees internally remind themselves that they are arriving late. This action may induce a guilty feeling regarding their lateness. Closing the door is not a wrong activity; just close it and allow them in, even if the employee is consistently late. This may seem like a trivial and fruitless action, but it can create some psychological changes in the employee. We applied this in my firm and achieved an 85% success rate.

Thank you for the suggestions. I feel that giving appreciation to a person for punctuality is actually a good thing we can do. By doing this, in an indirect way, we can pass on the message to latecomers that they are not on our good list.

Thanks.