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• (January 12, 2023, 01:18:11 AM)

[Chris]

So, I figured that the Geek Forum community would be a good place to ask this question since there are so many different work places being represented here ranging from positions held in the IT industry to restaurant work.

My question is regarding the lateness policies that your organization has in place. Exactly what is it, and how is it carried out? Being an employee subject to that same lateness policy, do you think it is a fair policy? I ask because I have been tasked with having to revise an already existing (And badly broken) lateness / attendance policy, and I wanted to see what other organizations are doing from around the country and world.

[Min]

When I'm late, I get SCREAMED AT every second until I do what I'm supposed to.

(I'm a stay at home mom.)

[Min]

When I worked at Taco Bell though, I seem to remember people being sent home if they were late.  I'm sure they probably got a few freebies, but if it was a regular thing, they just got sent home (didn't matter how busy it was in there either), and therefore didn't get paid.  If they don't wan't to be on the schedule, don't put them on the schedule.

[pbsaurus]

Being in a Finance role at the last two jobs over the past 12 years.  No set time to be in, flexible.  When there's a meeting I'll make it or arrange otherwise.  For the most part the norm is show up around 9:30 work until 6, then login from home at night as necessary.

Back when I was a restaurant manager, I'd give a couple minutes slack and forgive if I received a call that they were running late.  Abuse would be a counselling, going up to formal discipline, to even firing a few for excessive tardiness.  However at one of my locations, I had a server who could never show up on time.  I just made her shift half an hour before I needed her and she was almost always there by the time she was really required.  She'd always apologize profusely.  It was a silly game but it worked in that instance (plus all the other employees knew about the real schedule).

Back when I was a bus driver we had to check in on time, if we were even a second late it was a strike.  Three strikes in one quarter and you were out.

My recommendation is flexibility, especially if the work is not time sensitive.  For things like restaurant work, I found it better to schedule the prompt people in the high volume times.  That way it was rewarding good work ethic (higher volume times meant higher tips).

[Wunderkind]

Where I currently work is a family owned restaurant and there's no set policy, but if you make a habit of lateness your hours will get cut and if you still can't make it to work on time, you just... disappear off the schedule. The owner's not-so-subtle way of firing people.

Most places I've worked before have the one freebie and everything after that is a write-up. Most of them also had the so many write-ups in the so many months results in termination.

[Demosthenes]

I am never, ever late.  In every job I have ever had, I am 100% consistent in arriving at least 5-10 minutes early for work.  Always.

Which is good, because where I work now, we have a department meeting every morning (more of a 10-15 minute touchbase/huddle) at 8:00 on the dot.  So anybody arriving late is conspicuously so.

[Socrates]

Where I work now, the academic world, it's really flexible but mostly centers around "if your boss knows and the work is getting done you're probably fine"

When I worked in manufacturing I had a plant manager who if you showed up late for a meeting you had to put a dollar in the office coffee pool kitty.   If you punched in more than 5 min late you got docked 15 min, more than 1/2 hr without calling in you go home without pay, three strikes (in a year I think) you're fired.  Not to mention you wouldn't get any raises if you were consistently later/borderline late.

Me I've cultivated a come in before anyone else policy, I'm a morning person anyway so I run/walk my dogs, come in before traffic is bad, get a better parking space and before anyone else gets in I've had my coffee and got a leg up on my email.  The advantage here is no one really knows how early I'm in.  Just that I got there before them, and look I've responded to emails so I must have been there a while.  Then on the other end of the day I leave a 1/2 hr early.

[damoose]

I have a bit of flexibility in my scedule, in that my clock in time isn't set in stone. For the most part we get a 5 minute grace period for clocking in. After that it is a 15 minute dock. If we are habitually late we are supposed to be up for disciplinary action. We have only recently had someone actually get fired for being habitually late. The talking to/discipline is left up to the department heads.

I hate being late, but sometimes it is difficult to get a 3 year old moving in the morning. I'll admit to using the grace period on the wrong end, and even being a little later. My boss understands and I just make up my time (never mind that I tend to stay over by 30 min. on a regular basis anyways ).

[Vespertine]

I think there's a bright line of difference when you're talking about "shift work" versus any other kind of work.

I've been exempt/salaried for years and years, and there's no shift for me to cover.  I usually roll in sometime between 8:00 and 9:00 if I'm going to the office that day.  But I also have the ability to work from home.  When I do that, I'm usually online and working somewhere between 7:30 and 8:00.  I also usually work well beyond 40 hours in any given work week, basically for free.  If I habitually came in at 9:00, took an hour lunch and left at 4:00, it'd probably be a problem.  We have people that are hourly/non-exempt who don't have to cover shifts.  Those people usually have the latitude to come in and leave mostly as they see fit, provided they do their 8 hours.  We also have people who are hourly/non-exempt and they do have to cover shifts.  The expectation is that they are there and ready to work, on time.  I honestly don't know what the punishment is if they're late.

Now, on to my personal opinion.  If it's a workplace where someone being late means that others have to work longer, I think the punishment should be harsher.  For example, if I have an appointment after my scheduled shift and I miss it (or am late to it) because the next person on shift was late and I had to cover...I am going to be PISSED.  If it doesn't impact someone else or the business, they can make it up on the back end as far as I'm concerned.

[TheJudge]

Can you provide a context? What kind of business is this? What kind of jobs? How broad does the policy need to be (strictly being late, or covering various scenarios such as inclement weather, notification requirements, etc).

Having a policy is one thing, but it is useless on its own. Managers need to manage, and ideally it is done in a consistent way from one to the next. Typically, what many organisation will use is a progressive discipline mechanism (from verbal warniing, to written warning, to financial penality, suspension, demotion, termination). Not to say that they go trough each steps. One might go with written warning, then suspension. These are the typical disciplinary options. It depends on the nature of the work, how easy it is to replace the worker, and the corporate culture.

Typically, before applying discipline, certain factors are taken into consideration. Examples:
- is this a first incident or a reoccuring one?
- was the employee late for reasons within his control or not?
- did the employee display signs that they were genuinly sorry?
- How did we treat similar cases of lateness previously?
etc...

The best way to deal with lateness is not via a policy, but via a dialogue. Having a policy is good, but it's worthless on is own. A manager has to sit down and be clear about their expectations. Employees have to understand why it is important to be on time, and how being late impacts client service and collegues. Sometimes, there can be personal circumstance which make it difficult for an employee to get to work on time, and employers should explore alternate options where possible (such as a change in schedule to accomodate the employee, where warranted).

[Timberwolf 1.0]

Context is important. Our call centers have an occurence style policy for being 5-10min late or later, missing work etc. 1/2 occurence or 1 and after a few you lose your choice of shift, then hours are cut, written up, canned etc.

Outside call centers is very flexible depending on your dialogue with manager, get your work done, make up the time if you were really late, whatever.

[hackess]

We don't have a policy in place, per se, but since we provide customer support, we have to have someone in the office at all times during business hours. That usually means one or two people come in a bit earlier to "open", and one or two people come in a bit later and stay until the end of business hours. If it wasn't for the need to cover that set of hours, I wouldn't care when people came in so long as their work got done. That said, I recently fired someone who both didn't tell me when he was going to need to work abridged or unpredictable hours AND didn't get his work done in time he was here.