Struggling with Employee Punctuality in IT: How Can We Encourage Timely Arrivals?

Hi All, first of all, I would like to give my sincere thanks to all respected members on this portal for sharing such meaningful information.

Query

I want to ask one query on a collaborative basis. We, as HR professionals, deal with numerous things on a daily basis. One of the most common problems is the "reporting time of employees." Our company operates in the IT sector.

Currently, we are facing issues with employees arriving late. We have tried to address this problem by discussing their issues and providing grace periods, but unfortunately, they are still not punctual. This lack of discipline is also observed among senior employees. As an HR professional, I believe it is crucial for seniors to set an example by arriving on time so that their team members follow suit. Punctuality is a key characteristic of effective leadership.

I kindly request you to read through my message and share your valuable insights. Thank you.

Dear Swati, in your post, you have expressed the challenge of unpunctuality and its cause. If the seniors are not coming for duty on time, then why would the juniors come? Juniors simply follow the seniors.

In fact, the problem does not solely lie with senior managers. It is the leadership that is responsible for creating a culture of lateness. This culture is now deeply embedded in your company. Therefore, the vice that has spread extensively is not easy to eradicate. You may not have the authority to rectify the situation. Hence, consider it as a fait accompli of this job and continue with it as long as you are in this company.

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

Hi,

It is a shame that seniors report late to your workplace. Instead, they should set a good example of office norms. I suggest you take the senior-most director into confidence and draft a circular to be communicated to all team members regarding office timings. In the circular, you should clearly mention the punishment for reaching the office late. Hope my contribution helps.

Thanks and Regards,
Akash Sharma

Dear Colleague,

To view the late-coming of employees as solely due to leadership, or the lack thereof, is akin to applying balm on the hand when your head is aching. We must approach this issue from a broader perspective and find a solution by examining the results expected from employees at the end of the day. The rules and policies should facilitate employee performance to achieve the final results expected of them, rather than focusing solely on lateness from a narrow disciplinary angle caused by leadership behavior alone.

To create a win-win situation for both employees and management, consider adopting a flexible timing policy that requires employees to work for eight hours and produce the expected or defined quantity and quality of work. When a top-down culture is built and sustained around this, the occasions for disciplining will be very few and far between. It is not disputed that punctuality should be enforced, but the emphasis should be on creating an enabling environment for it to manifest rather than solely pursuing it with a hammer and nail.

Regards,
Vinayak Nagarkar
HR Consultant

Appreciate your initiative.

From a community perspective, participants can only share views based on individual beliefs and numerous assumptions. Some opinions may work out for you, and a few may not.

Step-by-step process

1. Problem identified by HR: Late coming by employees

2. Identify assumptions: Some common assumptions in this problem area are affecting overall discipline, productivity loss, unmet quality standards, customer dissatisfaction, team suffering, management unhappiness, and revenue loss.

3. Validation: Before confirming the problem, I suggest validating the assumptions. All the assumptions mentioned above are possible implications of employees arriving late. However, some organizations follow flexi-time where employees come late, leave early, or work from home. For validation, your observation matters, along with data collection and analysis, and feedback from department heads, team leads, or management (preferably the CEO) to understand whether the late arrival of employees is affecting revenue generation, productivity, quality, and customer service.

4. Identify the 'why' portion of the problem: If you can validate a few of your assumptions, then proceed with root-cause analysis to find out why employees are arriving late.

5. Solution: Once you have a validated problem and reasons for the behavior causing the problem, start exploring solutions.

Hi,

In our company, they have implemented strict measures, including salary deductions for latecomers. This initiative has brought about a significant change, with employees now arriving on time.

Thanks

Dear Ms. Swati, you may prepare a late-coming policy and get it approved by the management. Subsequently, address a circular about the late-coming policy to all employees.

Please mention that if an employee attends the office beyond the grace period, their salary will be deducted based on discussions with the management.

For instance, if the grace period is 10 minutes:

- From 11 minutes to 30 minutes: deduct one hour of salary.
- From 31 minutes up to one hour: deduct 2 hours of salary.
- Beyond one hour: deduct half a day's leave from their leave credits.

Thank you.

Hi all,

I could suggest here that late coming issues be addressed through a performance review plan. You may include this in the people development area, aiming for a change in behavior towards punctuality in the workplace.

For example:
- Good attendance: 3 instances of late arrival in a month
- Excellent attendance: 0 late arrivals in a month

By the end of the year, you can evaluate this and it will surely impact the overall performance for the year.

Hope this could be helpful.

Hi Swati,

While I understand your concern about latecoming, I was wondering if you have ever analyzed their clock-out time from the previous day. You mentioned that your company is in the IT sector. My assumption is that being in IT, based on the clients' geographical zones, teams may need to stretch and work. If this is the case, you can't insist on them being present on time for the next day as per the commencement of shift hours. Alternatively, you could consider recruiting more members based on projects and have them work in shifts.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you need further clarification.

Best regards, [Your Name]