How To Control The Staff's

Hi all,
We are a Software company, everyday all the team leads and his friends are coming by 15 - 30 above Min late. I have told them to come on time, else it'll lead to salary deduction. But still they are reporting late. Manager -Operation have been saying, that we are depending on them because of the projects so just ignore it. However, MD is directly asking me where is the control of the situation.
Kindly help me with this...

Hello :
Are they working late hours in the evening? If yes then it is justified if they come late.
In case they leave office on time yet come late in the morning, then you can initiate appropriate action. Firstly you should take the Ops Manager in confidence and explain him why it is appropriate to impose discipline in reporting time. This will help in setting a right example to other employees and also the new joinees. If they still continue better give a written warning with a copy marked to the Ops manager and MD.
Hope this info was useful.
- Gia

Hi,

Can you tell us what is your current attendance policy?If the employees are coming late regularly then you need to make some changes in your attendance policy. You can mention the core hours and flexible hours in the policy and whoever comes late during core hours their half day should be deducted. Here in my current company, our core hours is 09:00 am to 04:30 pm and flexible hours is 08:00 am to 09:00 am and 04:30 pm to 06:30 pm. All the employees should be in the office during the core hours for the smooth running of the business and whoever comes after 09:00 am, half day will be deducted, unless they are in a business meeting or some official purpose (approval from Manager will be required in this case). The weekly hours required is 48 hours and they can adjust the remaining hours using the flexible hours and it is working perfectly in our company.

Please find below the clause for your reference.

Each week will consist of 42.5 working hours (with expected lunch break of 30 minutes).

Compulsory working time from 09.00 – 16.30 hours

(With 30 minutes lunch break)

Flexi working time from 08.00 – 09.00 hours

from 16.30 – 18.30 hours

The above timings will be applicable without any privileges attached for late coming short leave or leaving early. Absence from office during compulsory working time cannot be compensated by additional working hours.

Inability to meet “working hour week “will involve loss of leave from P.L. ½ day for up to 4 hours and Full day beyond 4 hours.

Breakfast timings are not included in the Working Hours.

Regards,

Siju

Hi Siju :
You seem to have a very detailed attendance policy. Can you please share the policy doc if possible.
- Gia

Hi Vej,

Please be careful and not to make this, a complex affair. May be your organization never monitored attendance particularly employee clocks in clocks out, so closely.

Now, chief of the organization finds some of the employees misusing it and in turn affecting the overall performance as well as quality of work and wanted to take corrective steps.

1. Call senior team members for a meeting with MD, discuss and share concerns and arrive at attendance guidelines

2. Probably you could come up with two sets of guidelines - one for customer facing/support and the other for design/development/quality/ business support etc.

3. To avoid inconvenience for customers, let the customer facing team be compliant with a regular schedule ( Eg:- 9 -6 with 1 hrs break and no flexi)

4. For rest, let it be a flexi shift with clock in time 10 AM and daily threshold of 8 hrs and weekly threshold of 40 hrs (if 5 day work week)

5. Introduce a reward scheme ( Eg:- Silver Star - monthly threshold with xx hrs and above, Gold Star - Half Yearly threshold xxx hrs and above, Platinum Star - Annual threshold xxxx and above with some financial incentive)

6. Run the scheme for 1 year and if finding many defaulters, introduce forced discipline rules like posting Loss of Pay, deducting Leave etc. on behalf of employees those who account for more than 'x' days' late coming /early going

Dear Vej,
Are your employees not delivering ? Are they not working late when it requires them to?
Its great that you are taking control of the situation and changing it for better. However, a discipline would work, if they are inculcating it rather than you enforcing it.
Look at the current workflow structure and identify where you can get the employees more productive . Such as work allocation or cross training even trying out interesting new pet-projects that would interest the employees and benefit the project.
Motivating someone to perform better will work far stronger than holding them accountable for what is not happening .
Looking forward to hear from you.