Dear Saswata Banerjee,
I have endorsed the fact that in my opinion there is no provisions in the act for deducting leave for late comings.
However, if you announce that you are going to deduct leave for late coming, I am sure, as you have indicated, employees will say OK I will report in the second half of the shift.
This will not happen frequently because, if he recognizes that, he is likely to be late for work, he will choose to stay off for the first half and report for the second shift. So late coming on record will come down. But in my opinion this will also diminish because his leave balance will keep reducing and he may not have leave to his credit and will have to be on leave without pay sooner or later. Moreover, he will find it difficult to commute once again from his residence for the second half quite arduous. Hence, he will try to tune his reporting time in line with the organizational policy.
Yet another feature that can be introduced is the attendance incentive scheme. The scheme can encourage employees.to restrict their leave availing in a month to say 1- 2 days, apart from his regular weekly off and National and Festival holidays declared by the company, and the amount can be quite lucrative. This will promote reporting on time indirectly.
In short a policy for late coming clubbed with an attendance incentive scheme will bring in the desired benefit.
In my opinion there are habitual late comers and if these habitual late comers are not discouraged it encourages others who are reporting on time to follow suit. If these habitual late comers, who are generally few in number, are controlled then this feature will be quite manageable.
Late coming in my opinion if uncontrolled, leads to extended lunch breaks (more than the stipulated time).
Reporting to work on time has to slowly be culminated, to lead to reporting at the work spot on time. This is because we do find employees reporting to work on time but still do not report to their work spot on time and keep chatting about the news of the day with their colleagues wasting precious man hours of their as well as their colleagues.
Regards
M.V.Kannan