Struggling with Late Arrivals: How Can We Encourage Punctuality in Our Office?

Dear All, I work as an HR in a Maruti dealership. My major concern involves employees' office timings. Our office timings are from 9:45 am to 6:30 pm, but there are hardly any employees who come on time. When asked, they bluntly respond by saying, "We stay late at night; you cannot expect us to be on time." Some cases are genuinely understandable, while some employees stay late just to kill time. Among the employees who stay late, a few are mandatorily required to be on time the next day, but that is not the case here.

Query: Managing Employee Timeliness

My query here is, what should we do to control such employees? Please help!

Thanks & Regards, Maya

You can instruct them to fill out a timesheet or worksheet and have it countersigned by the monitoring authority, or you can utilize CCTV cameras for a stricter approach. However, the most effective way is to motivate them in accordance with the policies to take care of their health. Additionally, you can request supervisors to manage the extra workload or time requirements if they need someone to work late at night.

Hope this information is helpful to you. I will await your response to determine its feasibility.

Dear Maya, you haven't mentioned the reporting hierarchy, i.e., to whom do you report? At first, prepare a report neutrally and judiciously. Submit it to your boss and the CEO or MD of the dealership (if they are not the same) and seek their help to involve them in the process.

Regards,
Surajit

It's the responsibility of the employees to complete their work on a day-to-day basis. So, we can't be responsible for their late staying, right? Try to implement a late policy. The employees should be on time. If they don't come on time, for every 5 or 6 (please decide this after discussing with your management) latecomings, you can deduct 1 day's salary from them. After finalizing the late-coming policy, inform your employees officially. As it is a matter of money, most of them will try to come except in emergencies and unexpected cases.

Let me know your opinion about this.

Appreciate your quick response. Thank you all. To Vani: You are absolutely right. As explained, I am planning to implement salary deduction and shall see the response. To Ravi: We do have worksheets maintained, but it's all futile and has not yielded any results. To Surajit: The CEO has asked me to intervene and resolve it.

Introducing a Reward System

Additionally, I am also planning to introduce some reward system for employees coming on time. Let's see if it helps.

I appreciate your effort to find a solution to deduct salary. However, it might spoil the entire situation, and your effort might be perceived as "overprotective."

In this auto industry, customers can walk in at any time until the last minute before the showroom closes. You must understand that these executives are there to convince the customer and sell. If the sales volume goes down, you, as HR, would be the first person to receive feedback from the CEO.

I would suggest that you first circulate a notice to all employees, with a copy to the CEO, stating that anyone who is late for three days in a month will lose one day from their leave (PL). If an employee does not have PL, then the deduction should be directly from their salary. This circulation would confirm the seriousness of the action to be taken.

Moreover, implementing a reward program like "Best Employee for Punctuality" might convert the negative into a positive. This could be added as part of employee engagement initiatives, which will help you score points in the Maruti Audit in the future.

Regards,
Surajit

There are a number of ways you can deal with this situation.

Maintain daily records using biometric scanners. Communicate to the concerned executives their number of mandatory work hours if they are falling short of the standard working hours.

Monitor the footfall of the customers in the opening hours, in the second half, and the last half. Are you aware of which part of the day yields more sales? Collect data. Do the executives have fixed sales targets? Are they achieving them? Take customer feedback about the service offered by the executives using feedback forms, SMS, or emails. Look for the most common time that customers are coming to the showroom. Are the executives' appointment letters specified with timings and the standard working hours? Is there an overtime system in the showroom for the executives and the support staff? Is there a reward and punishment system for punctuality in the showroom? What are the company rules? Look at the larger picture in terms of the cost analysis. Carry out a detailed analysis. How much are you all losing due to this behavior of the executives? Please document and communicate this data to the executives. We have flexible timings where you can come in and go out as per the work targets and standard working hours.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Ask supervisors to fill manpower for any extra burden or time requirements if they need someone to stay late at night.

Thank you!

Solutions to Manage Employee Timings

There are various things to do to solve your problem:

• Ask them to fill out the timesheet on a daily basis.
• For late stays, there must be approval from the supervisor or manager.
• Prepare a late-coming policy document for your office. For example: Only 3 or 4 late arrivals for 1/2 hour are allowed in a month; after that, deduct one day of leave or salary.
• Install a Biometric Attendance recording machine in the office.
• Ask the supervisor to submit a report for employees staying late with reasons.

I hope the above points will help you solve your problem.

Regards,
Payroll Solutions
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To solve this problem, you can also introduce an attendance bonus, where an employee who reports to duty punctually without any late arrivals in a month should be rewarded with a cash prize. If there are more than 5 instances of late arrival in a month, you can deduct the PL/EL of the employee.

Regards,
Indushri

If the employees are not comfortable coming at 9:45 am, you can submit a copy of the attendance to management and ask for changing the timing from 10 am to 6:30 pm. Do you deduct the salary or deduct their PL for all late comings? You can install a Biometric attendance machine, which will help you check timing. Go for a finger-punching machine.

If staff return late, they are allowed to arrive late the next day as they need sufficient rest; otherwise, their work performance will be affected.