How Do You Handle Late Arrivals and Missing Leave Applications in Your Office?

Respected Seniors, I am working for a manufacturing firm as an HR Officer, and I need some help regarding the above-mentioned topic. Most of the staff in our office have a habit of coming late and not submitting leave applications when they are on leave. Even in the case of an emergency leave, they do not submit an application the next day, despite given instructions. Please help, guys.

Disciplinary Measures for Attendance Issues

For every three late arrivals, a salary deduction equivalent to half a day's work should be applied. Three instances of uninformed leave can warrant disciplinary action, and repeated behavior may lead to termination.

I also agree with Sanjeev, but before implementing this rule or policy, talk to your employees politely and make it clear about the new rules and regulations. Also, discuss with your senior management to implement this policy.

Best of luck,
Meetu 

Thank you, Mr. Sanjeev, thank you, Ravita, and thank you, Meetu, for your suggestions. I appreciate you all. Meetu, I completely agree with you. We have done this several times, but no proper action has been taken in the last 6 months. Mr. Sanjeev, I will surely try to follow what you have said above.

Do you have a pass system at security/gate to monitor staff movement and time? First, keep track of this for a month and calculate the total man-days lost due to this. Intimate senior management along with your calculations and findings about its impact and the need to address this issue. Then, you must get a new policy approved by management on this and implement it accordingly.

Regards.

In line with the advice given by seniors above, if this problem is severe, first issue a circular giving all relevant leave application rules, i.e., CL, PL, etc., and then ask for everyone's compliance with the rules. This will make it clear that you have taken preliminary steps to solve the problem in a relatively easy way.

Observe for a few days if the response is positive. If not, declare with your management's permission that for any habitual late coming or non-submission of leave applications within a specified time, it will directly be correlated to the 'disciplinary' behavioral criteria in everyone's appraisal and will have a direct impact on monetary gains. Hope this helps you.

Regards, Vaishalee Parkhi

Yes, we do have a pass system. I'm a little bit confused about how to find man-days lost and how to calculate the same. I'll be glad if you can make it clearer for me to understand.

Thank you very much for your suggestion.

Since I have joined this firm, I have issued circulars regarding this 5-6 times. I don't think any of the employees take it seriously. Neither is anyone interested in coming on time nor in submitting leave applications.

Thank you.

Regards,
Vaishalee

Respected Seniors, I am working for a manufacturing firm as an HR Officer, and I just wanted some help regarding the above-mentioned topic. Most of the staff in our office have a habit of coming late and not submitting leave applications when they are on leave. Even in the case of emergency leave, they do not submit an application the next day despite receiving instructions. Please help, guys. Imperfect leave rules and defective Conduct and Discipline Rules are the basic causes of such irregularities on the part of employees.

I guess Vaishalee has summed up everything. Unions, if they exist, will raise objections, etc.

Policy Education and Enforcement

First, educate about the policy. Inculcate the following: educate about policy violations, enforce express intentions, and make it clear that policy violations are intolerable. All individuals have been given adequate chances to rectify their behavior. If this is still not enough, penalize them—financially or otherwise.

Best Regards,
MM Ali

Recommendation for Supervisor Education

One more "Education" I would recommend is to include educating supervisors and line managers. Unless they understand the value of coming on time, this will not work.

Regards,
Mohan NC

Actually, this problem should be solved by the work boss and senior persons, like the Production Manager and others. For example, as I am working as a Divisional Manager HR, I stand at the gate at 8:30 am to observe the workers and staff movements. By doing this, the results have been very good. Try to follow it. My suggestions are a little bit hard, but they yield full results. Don't forget to keep a record. If there is any signing system, the muster should go to the table of HRM within 5 minutes, and they should sign in front of them while stating the proper reason. If you are a production-oriented HR, please consider that these problems fall under the category of INVISIBLE LOSS of AVAILABLE MAN HOURS. Calculate the percentage and discuss it with your seniors. I have 30 years of experience handling a large workforce of workers and staff.

You can follow a systematic approach to resolve this issue. You may carry out an action plan wherein people's participation would be of core importance.

1. You can have brainstorming sessions with case studies related to the perils caused by late coming (give two instances of the happenings in your workplace and the way it has affected business/productivity/coworkers/benefits, etc.).

2. After the brainstorming session, you may formally have a meeting of the workforce (together or in batches as the strength permits) and read out the leave policy.

3. Post the announcement, pass a circular for the signature of all the attendees; those who are absent, their respective head should brief the same to the absentee on the next (present) working day, and signature on the circular to be taken accordingly.

4. Also, explain the leave application form to the employees, how it is to be filled, when it is to be filled, the criteria for leave sanctioning, who has the authority to sanction the leave, and so forth. (As silly as it may sound, many employees may not know the actual process, thus avoiding the procedure.)

5. You may also divide your days into quarter days (2 hours), and after three late marks, quarter day leave to be deducted from the annual leave.

6. Furthermore, you can include a variable in the salary called attendance allowance, maybe a nominal amount, but an amount worth earning for 100% attendance (no late marks allowed, but sanctioned leaves will be considered). Thus, the employees can earn the extra amount. If paying extra is a concern, then you may think of adding such a head in the present variable salary structure.

7. Also, you may put up a board and star against the employees coming on time and a red mark for those who don't and pin it up on the notice board.

Hope the suggestions can come to some help.

All the best for better attendance and retarding tardiness. 

Regards,
Mugdha Mitbawkar.

Well, if you have such a system, then I presume it works more or less like this: Employees write their logging out time in the format from: to: with the date. Then, they get it signed first by their immediate superior and then by someone in HR for gate permission. After that, they drop this at security on the way out.

The process may differ, but all that matters is you can physically lay hands on each slip by month-end. Go through each slip and create a tracker in the format below. It won't be too tough; I have done it for up to 450 employees in half an hour.

In an Excel sheet:

Sl no Emp No Name Total Early/Late Hours

That would do. You can further add the process center or department in the tracker to find department frequency or the most commonly late days.

For mandays lost, you can divide the total you got in your tracker sheet by your average shift hours (8 hours). That will give you how many mandays are lost.

Cheers. If you work it out, let me know. Make a convincing write-up, add some pretty tables along with this, and submit for approval for an early/late coming policy. For instance, 3 fifteen-minute late comings or early leaves count as half a day.

:)

Thank you, everyone, for such a wonderful response. Mugdha, I really liked the idea of highlighting those who are on time with a star and those who are coming late with a red mark. I will discuss this with my boss. Really, thanks, everyone. I appreciate you all.

As the manpower strength in our organization is around 10,000, there is a rule that is followed for latecomers based on the total number of minutes they are late in an entire month, as outlined below:

1. 0-30 minutes late - No deduction
2. 30-60 minutes late - One hour salary deduction
3. 60-120 minutes late - Half-day salary deduction

This rule applies to all employees, and if any employee arrives late and the company deducts their salary, it is in accordance with company policy.

In our organization, most employees arrive at the company premises before the designated time.

Regards,
Sandeep Sharma

Addressing Employee Misconduct: Late Arrivals and Leave Applications

Late coming to duty and not submitting leave applications for their absence from duty is a serious misconduct on the part of employees. Firstly, you should issue a circular to all employees to discourage such practices and enforce discipline.

If they continue with the same misconduct, you should mark them as absent for half a day for arriving late and deduct wages accordingly, or do not allow them to work when they are late.

Regarding the non-submission of leave requests for their absences, mark them as absent and prepare their salary for the days they actually attended work.

Regards,
D. Gurumurthy
HR/IR Consultant

Please create a new policy for employees in coordination with your top management. Additionally, take the initiative to engage with your employees personally.

Regards

If your employee is not coming on time and not submitting the leave application, then you should simply issue a circular duly signed by the HR manager and the VP or GM. In the circular, clearly mention that if an employee does not come on time and fails to submit the leave form before going on leave, they will be marked as absent. It is essential to strictly enforce this rule, as positive results will follow after marking two or more employees as absent.

Regards,
Anshul

I suggest creating policies and procedures, circulating them, and discussing them with management. Once they are approved, they can be implemented with the help of Departmental/Divisional HODs.

Regards,
Arjun
[Phone Number Removed For Privacy Reasons]

Dear all seniors,

I am working in the SSI industry where the HR policy for leave application is framed. Since February 13th, it has been mandated that any kind of leave must be communicated to the immediate boss/HOD and HR within 5 days after the completion of the leave days. Failure to adhere to this requirement will result in the employee's CL/PL/COFF not being adjusted against the leave taken. Is this policy viable?

Thank you.

Steps to Implement an Effective Leave Policy

A couple of things you can do:

- Make a clear leave policy covering every scenario and provide clear guidelines on what happens in each of them. Take care to create a balanced policy—particularly, not too draconian.

- Talk to senior managers, inform them about the policy, and ask for their help in implementing it. Request them to communicate it to their teams.

- Circulate the policy in the company. If possible, meet with teams and explain why such a policy is necessary and request their cooperation.

- There will still be defaulters. Be strict with them and use them as examples.

- Ask for suggestions and keep the feedback/communication channels open.