How Do You Handle Payroll and Attendance Issues When Senior Staff Ignore the Rules?

Hi everyone, I have joined as HR in a small organization. I am the first HR of this organization and in the process of implementing HR policies. I encounter some issues here with the employees and need your valuable advice on this, please.

Payroll Issues

Payroll is done by Accounts with mistakes. Here, employees of certain categories (HOD, Asst. Manager) are not all signing the attendance, yet they receive full salary. They feel like it's a prestige issue if asked to sign the attendance.

Attendance and Leave Concerns

One senior employee of our organization has not come to the office for one week, and we have received no information from her. When asked for a leave letter, she claims that she has worked from home on these leave days and will not submit any leave letter, though she has EL & CL, and no rules will be applicable to her as she is in a senior position. There are also other employees who support her in this. I have asked the management to streamline these sorts of issues.

Kindly help me handle these employees, please.

Dear Jayarani, basically, you are a law-abiding person by nature, and as such, you should be a strict disciplinarian. It is good and commendable. However, you should not lose sight of the fact of organizational politics irrespective of the size of the organization. When H.O.Ds and Senior Managers flout the basic rules of attendance and leave, naturally, they cannot take cognizance of the indiscipline and deficient performance of lower-rung employees under them.

As a newcomer to the organization, especially as an HR Executive, which is essentially a staff function, trying to immediately rectify things may not lead to success. Therefore, aim to impress the CEO first and convince him with proven facts and figures of the issues occurring and how they could impact the organization in the long run. It is not clear from your post how you report, whether directly to the CEO or through a Line Manager. Ensure that all orders and instructions are in the name of the CEO, and avoid personal engagements when addressing transgressions.

Remember, being nice is different from being meek or weak. Be tactful in your approach.

Dear Jayaranai, discuss with top management and implement a biometric attendance system. Establish a leave and attendance policy (with permission from the CEO/Top Management) and circulate it to all employees, stating that salaries will be calculated based on punches in the biometric machine. It is crucial to have a clear work-from-home policy in place to prevent any potential misuse where employees could claim wages while on holiday in Goa!

Additionally, ensure you have payroll software integrated with the biometric attendance system to prevent manual tampering of attendance records.

Regards, Anil Raina

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Dear Jayarani, first of all, you need to prepare a detailed report and submit it to the CEO/top management about the indiscipline and the bad practices. In case they are positive and want to bring discipline into the organization, they need to call for a meeting, discuss, and obtain inputs from the HODs.

Change is inevitable

Change is painful, but it is inevitable. Hence, it will be difficult for a new entrant like you to handle unless it comes from the horse's mouth. The senior management generally doesn't want to be perceived as bad; therefore, they may delegate such tasks to HR, leading HR to be viewed negatively as if the HR person is creating these issues. However, it is our responsibility to bring the culture back, but you should have patience. I also faced such critical issues in one organization, but after briefing the management, they understood the implications and supported unconditionally. It is a 15-year-old organization without any written policies, procedures, systems, rules, performance evaluation system, recognition, reward, etc. I struggled for 2 years and finally introduced all systems, of course, as I was in a senior position.

Try to work on bringing the change into the organization or consider changing the organization.

Regards, Kameswarao

You need to set up the system in the small organization first so that your problems are minimized. First of all, if you can go for biometric attendance at the entrance, each and every person attending the office will be punched in and out with timings. Secondly, you need to make the Employees HR manual which will regulate all aspects and should contain Leave Rules and provisions for work from home and all other details applicable to each employee of the organization. These and other systems will help you maintain a formal atmosphere in the organization.

Regards, Jayarani

Many thanks to all for sharing your valuable suggestions. I will start implementing them one by one with the consent of my management. If anyone has a work-from-home policy, please share it with me.

Regards, Jayarani J