Dear All,
I am working as an HR manager with a service provider company. Due to the service provider business model, which has a high customer orientation, team members often have to stay beyond office hours. However, our Managing Director (MD) wants everybody to arrive on time. As an HR professional, my dilemma is how to encourage team members to arrive promptly. They are reluctant to comply, as they are already staying beyond the designated office hours.
Thank you.
From India, Bhilai
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I am working as an HR manager with a service provider company. Due to the service provider business model, which has a high customer orientation, team members often have to stay beyond office hours. However, our Managing Director (MD) wants everybody to arrive on time. As an HR professional, my dilemma is how to encourage team members to arrive promptly. They are reluctant to comply, as they are already staying beyond the designated office hours.
Thank you.
From India, Bhilai
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Kindly provide more information about the size of the firm and how old it is. Please also ask the Managing Director whether it's okay for staff to leave on time, as he expects them to arrive on time. Do the staff get paid overtime rates if they stay behind to provide service to customers?
From United Kingdom
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1639From United Kingdom
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I can very well relate to your query as I am undergoing the same situation. Educate your employees that if a person puts in extra hours, they need to be given some appreciation for that. If most of your employees stay back late, suggest to your MD to revise office hours for your customer relations team (only for the department that works with customers). Many companies allow considerable late entry if the person stayed late the previous evening. One needs to understand that some basic comforts should be provided, like at least 8-9 hours of rest period in a day.
What I do is talk to the team leader of the concerned department and ask for an upper cap on the time when everyone should be present and beyond which they would be marked late. Fortunately, my CEO and president liked the idea and are supporting it. You will have to educate your MD to provide certain comforts to your employees so that they are motivated and engaged.
Hope this helps.
From India, Mumbai
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What I do is talk to the team leader of the concerned department and ask for an upper cap on the time when everyone should be present and beyond which they would be marked late. Fortunately, my CEO and president liked the idea and are supporting it. You will have to educate your MD to provide certain comforts to your employees so that they are motivated and engaged.
Hope this helps.
From India, Mumbai
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To support Ankita Shah's advice, let me quote an example from my knowledge. I know of cases of marketing people who work with global clients in a computer firm. They are given due recognition for working late (they are not paid anything extra for working long hours) and are also allowed to work from home to answer queries. They also have core working hours with flexible working hours (everyone has to be in between, say, 10 am and 3 pm on most days and can be absent with due permission from their bosses).
From United Kingdom
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From United Kingdom
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Thank you for your response. Currently, 60 members are working in our company, and we have successfully completed 13 years. During interviews, the Managing Director emphasized that everyone must be willing to stay beyond office hours if there is a heavy workload.
Thank you.
Regards
From India, Bhilai
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Thank you.
Regards
From India, Bhilai
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Thanks, Sulochana, for your response. I wonder why your MD wants to introduce this new rule if people have been allowed to come late all these years. "Old habits die hard"; hence, your MD must be prepared to negotiate with the workers. Being a small firm, if I were the MD, I would call a meeting of all the staff and debate the issue. At the meeting, the pros and cons of insisting on everyone coming on time should be discussed.
I do not know the employment situation in your firm, as I am based in the UK, and you have not given enough information about your services. If your MD is prepared to lose staff by insisting on them coming on time, then he may succeed. Otherwise, he should be prepared to lose some valuable staff at considerable expense.
From United Kingdom
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I do not know the employment situation in your firm, as I am based in the UK, and you have not given enough information about your services. If your MD is prepared to lose staff by insisting on them coming on time, then he may succeed. Otherwise, he should be prepared to lose some valuable staff at considerable expense.
From United Kingdom
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Found an email related to your problem. The little difference in the said case is that it focuses on absenteeism. However, if we logically think, late coming to the office is similar to absenting oneself from work for that period. You can modify the case and suggestion. Since this was an advertisement mail, I had to modify it to the extent of deleting the promotional content. Hope this helps.
Employee Absence — Solving That Problem
Mary was furious with Paul, one of the customer service phone reps she supervised. He had called in sick again, forcing the other employees to pick up the slack. Paul was averaging one sick day every two weeks. It simply wasn't fair.
"Please get Paul on the phone for me," Mary said to one of her staff. As she sat angrily at her desk, she thought about how she would let Paul have it for showing so little respect for his colleagues.
But then she had a sudden doubt. What, legally, could she say to Paul? Would the fact that she had called him at all mean that she was harassing him? Suppose she fired Paul, and he sued for harassment? Would she be fired — and all because she was trying to manage as effectively as she knew how?
Proactive Steps
Many employers get caught up in a cycle of repeated attempts to reform these types. That's a mistake because the costs of employee absenteeism — reflected in lost production, overtime, and temporary replacements for the absent worker — can add up quickly.
In fact, some personnel experts estimate that an absent employee costs a company 1.75 to 2.5 times his daily salary. Some large companies estimate that absenteeism may be costing them more than $500,000 per year.
How can companies combat the problem? Approaches vary, but most successful absenteeism programs include a positive discipline program.
Use Positive Discipline
Because absenteeism typically comes under the "minor problem" category, the first step is a pre-counseling session between the individual and his supervisor. In this session, the supervisor determines if the employee understands the company's policy on absences.
The positive discipline approach then consists of the following stages:
1) Oral Reminder Stage.
This stage follows the counseling session and lasts three months or however long seems to be in the company's best interest. But the period has to be uniform for all employees. If you resolve the problem, the slate is wiped clean and so is the documentation of the incident.
2) Written Reminder Stage.
If the problem still exists after the counseling session, a second counseling session between the employee and his supervisor is scheduled. This time, however, the supervisor writes a memo to the individual spelling out the problem, the worker's acknowledgment of it, and his agreement to work toward its resolution.
A copy is placed in the employee's personnel file. The written reminder stage lasts six months, or however long you think is best for the company. If the problem is resolved within this time, the memo is considered inactive and there are no repercussions for the worker. However, don't discard the memo — keep it in the employee's personnel file.
3) Decision-Making Stage.
If the absenteeism problem still exists after the written reminder stage, the supervisor has a final meeting with the employee, during which he spells out the company's policies again. Then the employee is given a one-day leave of absence to decide if he wants to continue working for the company on the condition that he agrees to abide by its rules.
Employee leave is a complex subject because federal regulations are extensive and your state has its own laws. Leave is also important because it affects productivity and morale, and the legal stakes are high.
Regards.
From India, Mumbai
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Employee Absence — Solving That Problem
Mary was furious with Paul, one of the customer service phone reps she supervised. He had called in sick again, forcing the other employees to pick up the slack. Paul was averaging one sick day every two weeks. It simply wasn't fair.
"Please get Paul on the phone for me," Mary said to one of her staff. As she sat angrily at her desk, she thought about how she would let Paul have it for showing so little respect for his colleagues.
But then she had a sudden doubt. What, legally, could she say to Paul? Would the fact that she had called him at all mean that she was harassing him? Suppose she fired Paul, and he sued for harassment? Would she be fired — and all because she was trying to manage as effectively as she knew how?
Proactive Steps
Many employers get caught up in a cycle of repeated attempts to reform these types. That's a mistake because the costs of employee absenteeism — reflected in lost production, overtime, and temporary replacements for the absent worker — can add up quickly.
In fact, some personnel experts estimate that an absent employee costs a company 1.75 to 2.5 times his daily salary. Some large companies estimate that absenteeism may be costing them more than $500,000 per year.
How can companies combat the problem? Approaches vary, but most successful absenteeism programs include a positive discipline program.
Use Positive Discipline
Because absenteeism typically comes under the "minor problem" category, the first step is a pre-counseling session between the individual and his supervisor. In this session, the supervisor determines if the employee understands the company's policy on absences.
The positive discipline approach then consists of the following stages:
1) Oral Reminder Stage.
This stage follows the counseling session and lasts three months or however long seems to be in the company's best interest. But the period has to be uniform for all employees. If you resolve the problem, the slate is wiped clean and so is the documentation of the incident.
2) Written Reminder Stage.
If the problem still exists after the counseling session, a second counseling session between the employee and his supervisor is scheduled. This time, however, the supervisor writes a memo to the individual spelling out the problem, the worker's acknowledgment of it, and his agreement to work toward its resolution.
A copy is placed in the employee's personnel file. The written reminder stage lasts six months, or however long you think is best for the company. If the problem is resolved within this time, the memo is considered inactive and there are no repercussions for the worker. However, don't discard the memo — keep it in the employee's personnel file.
3) Decision-Making Stage.
If the absenteeism problem still exists after the written reminder stage, the supervisor has a final meeting with the employee, during which he spells out the company's policies again. Then the employee is given a one-day leave of absence to decide if he wants to continue working for the company on the condition that he agrees to abide by its rules.
Employee leave is a complex subject because federal regulations are extensive and your state has its own laws. Leave is also important because it affects productivity and morale, and the legal stakes are high.
Regards.
From India, Mumbai
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In most customer-facing organizations, the customer service team works in shifts. The shifts are aligned so that the core team is present in the office during a fixed time, such as 10:30 AM to 4:30 PM. Not all team members need to be on shifts, and the manager of that function can determine how this can be organized. Shift timings are also rotated so that all employees take turns working in different shifts.
I have implemented this system in my previous organization, and it worked very effectively. We had customer service personnel in the office from 7 AM to 12 midnight every day of the week. Additionally, we ensured that each employee had two days off during the week.
We created an Excel worksheet to plan this schedule, incorporating formulas to ensure that staff members had different shifts every two months. Employee codes were used for the formulas to work accurately.
This responsibility generally falls under the function head's role as they are knowledgeable about the shift timings; HR can act as a facilitator.
Develop a schedule, discuss it with the employees and the managing director. I am confident that this approach will be successful.
Regards
From India, Hyderabad
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I have implemented this system in my previous organization, and it worked very effectively. We had customer service personnel in the office from 7 AM to 12 midnight every day of the week. Additionally, we ensured that each employee had two days off during the week.
We created an Excel worksheet to plan this schedule, incorporating formulas to ensure that staff members had different shifts every two months. Employee codes were used for the formulas to work accurately.
This responsibility generally falls under the function head's role as they are knowledgeable about the shift timings; HR can act as a facilitator.
Develop a schedule, discuss it with the employees and the managing director. I am confident that this approach will be successful.
Regards
From India, Hyderabad
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Employee-engage ment.prn_190.pd f
Employee Engagement Study.doc
Employee engagement.ppt