The growing desire for flexibility means the importance of punctuality is slipping – but should you reprimand your staff if they turn up a little late?
“What you want from your employees is commitment, not compliance,” says Bob Lane, the director of people care and communications at Solvera Solutions. “I think a far more enlightened approach is to create a culture and environment where people want to be there.”
Lane says employers shouldn’t strive for a “clock-watching environment” that’s designed solely to get people there, but should focus on creating an environment that gets people engaged while they are there.
“Go for full engagement first and be as flexible as you can in meeting people’s unique needs,” he says.
However, flagrant tardiness can have a serious impact on productivity if it’s taken too far. According to a study by tiptopjob.com, 20 per cent of employees admit to being late for work every single day. That means if one employee is just five minutes late every day, 20 hours of productivity is lost across the full year.
A further 14 per cent said they were late approximately once a week and 21 per cent said they were late one a month.
Human resources manager Ilka Bene used to work for a ferry service – and in that line of work, being late can be a much bigger deal.
“If an employee is a few minutes late then the whole ship would be late and we’d pay overtime; so it’d be a very big deal,” says Bene.
Now, Bene heads up the HR department at Island Savings, a financial institution.
“Within our non-member facing functions, we’ve got the opportunity to be a lot more flexible,” she says, but points out that it doesn’t mean it’s okay to be late.
Bene says she tries to set up schedules that work for employees and their families but the deal is: you have to stick to that schedule so the team know what to expect.
“We have an impetus to provide excellent member service and one of the ways we that is through team work,” says Bene. “If someone is a few minutes late it might not be the end of the world but it really does impact the rest of the team.”
