What Are The Best Practices To Make Employees Reach Office On Time ?

Hi all,

I request you to share best practices to help employees arrive at the office on time.

1. Give a 5-lot of 30-minute time gap to reach the office. Say [9 A.M. to 9:30 A.M.]

2. If they use all 5 time gaps in a month and arrive late, then for every lateness after 15 minutes [9:15 A.M.], deduct 2 hours of pay. So, if an employee arrives late four times after 9:15 A.M. [15 minutes of traffic jam excuse allowed but should also leave fifteen minutes late officially], even after using the allowed thirty-minute delay period, they are entitled to a deduction of one day's pay.

Best of luck for the delay...

Discipline is essential; however, how you implement it is your choice. You have an option to introduce rules as mentioned by Ulalme with degrees of punishment as applicable. Penalties are important; however, they bring their frictions along with them.

You can alternatively take a different approach. Assuming that you are aware of the reason why they are late? In your capacity as an HR and Management, how far can you go to resolve them? Have you found the options on how to ensure they reach on time?

What are the chief reasons that you have observed so far? Do they stay far away, or are they not able to manage time due to an overload of responsibilities?

It's easy to punish; however, before you set the guidelines and the penalties, please ensure that you did your best to support them. You need to gain confidence before you can create frictions.

In case you are not completely aware of the problems faced while reaching the office, consider calling for an All-Hands Meeting or a Focus Group Meeting. Brainstorm with your employees on how to resolve them. Make them a partner in this project to maintain discipline within the firm. Every employee may have their unique problem for not being able to reach the office on time. Please make sure you do enough to support them before you implement penalties. You can take this opportunity and build a Peer-To-Peer Mentoring Program. Let your employees mentor each other through these challenges. What one cannot think, the other may offer as a solution.

Here are a few options for you to consider. The first option for you is to offer pick-up and drop. That way you are least likely to miss out on timeliness.

In case you don't have the budget to fund the transport, can you initiate a ride-sharing process? There are apps such as Let's Ride that allow you to carpool or bike pool.

In case this is not possible, please consider the option to offer flexi-timing, where the employee logs in for 8.5 hours and clocks it within the office time period of 8.00 am - 5.00 pm or 9.00 am - 6.00 pm. That way you will have fewer hassles to penalize. The employees may actually welcome this with more productivity.

In an office I worked in, we had several escalations while managing late reporting to work. Hence the Centre Lead called for a Process Improvement Meeting every day in the first hour. Everyone was free to join and contribute to it, irrespective of their roles and reporting orders; they could pick any project they want. This made the interest level in the employees shoot high and the ownership increase. Everybody wanted to be a part of a Process Improvement Program in some or the other project. Needless to mention, this was a high visibility event. It was a zero-cost employee engagement-building program that worked brilliantly.

In your situation, you may need to think differently. Employee satisfaction doesn't lie in the pay package or the designation but in the work culture that you build.

Engage them meaningfully for growth, towards a shared vision, and it will offer the best payoff ever!

Last but not least, please remember it's always easy to punish, but it takes eons to build trust. May you utilize this opportunity to build a better firm.

Wishing you all the best!

Dear Asharma.2c...,

I noticed that this is your first post, even though you have been a member for over 3 years. Cite Contribution has provided an excellent response to a query that lacks details about the scenario and the reason behind your question.

It is always advisable to provide as much detail as possible about the scenario. This approach helps in receiving precise answers without the need for assumptions.

Thank you.

Best regards,
[Your Name]

If seniors come on time, then people below will also be punctual.

Water flows from top to bottom.

This is a matter of discipline, and no matter how much time is extended, the latecomer will not arrive on time unless there is a strict time control entry system. Consider how people manage to arrive at the railway station or airport when they need to catch a train or plane; they understand that departures occur at the scheduled time and will not wait for them to arrive. Coordinate with employees through meetings, seminars, and raise awareness about time management to motivate them to be punctual, as it reflects on the organization as well.

After giving just a couple of days to arrive on time, establish a cut-off date after which latecomers should not be allowed.

I am also facing such an issue. I am working in a power plant in West Bengal. Around 10 people are working under me, all of whom are related to and in higher positions within local trade unions. They don't even inform me about their late arrivals. I am younger than them.

The irony is that our office head leaves on Saturday evenings and returns on Monday afternoons. Punishments don't seem to work. Holding individuals responsible isn't effective either, as the organization is overemployed, leading to little work and, consequently, little responsibility. Even those who do their work don't follow timings.

Could someone please provide a practical solution?

The only solution is strict time control, and the latecomers should not be allowed entry after the cutoff and prefixed time; they will have to go back. This is possible, although for just a few initial days, the organization may have to face some problems, but this can be taken care of with other pre-arrangements.

This is well possible too.

Hi, I'm in the HR department. I'm also facing the same issue. One of our HODs never comes on time. We have given her flexible timing, numerous verbal notices, and even resorted to punishment by deducting a full day's leave, but nothing seems to work. Now, just because of two individuals, the company is waiving Saturdays off. The company is reluctant to ask her to leave the organization. Please suggest.

Dear Friend,

This is an innate practice of any individual, whether they are working or not, to be punctual. It is essential to determine if an individual is approaching punctuality or not. There are no specific rules or regulations established, nor is there any medication available in the market to achieve the same.

Regards,