How Employee Tardiness is Impacting Your Whole Office


How Employee Tardiness is Impacting Your Whole Office

Occasional lateness getting to work is inevitable – and excusable, if it’s for the right reason. There was a huge bottleneck accident on the highway; the weather is bad; or the babysitter cancelled at the last minute. But if employee tardiness becomes habitual, it’s time to take action.

The Negative Impact of Tardiness

Often, tardiness is not only a sign of an employee expressing dissatisfaction with their work or workplace, but also damaging to the behavior and morale of others.

  • Resentment arises. If one or two people are consistently late for no reason, other employees may start to be resentful. Talk will spread quickly about the perceived unfairness of the situation. Once staff members start to pit themselves against each other, morale takes a nosedive.
  • Employee tardiness has a ripple effect. Once a co-worker is constantly tardy with no repercussions, others will also begin to be late for work, simply because they feel they can. Like resentment, bad habits can quickly go viral. This lack of discipline may even spill over into other areas. For instance, people my view management’s inaction as a lack of concern and begin to pay less attention to details, work quality or even safety.
  • People lose respect for you as a manager. Chronic employee tardiness shows blatant disrespect for an employee’s manager or administration. And once respect is lost, it takes a lot of time, energy and damage control to get it back.
  • Customer service suffers. As employee tardiness persists and related attention to detail declines, customer service may soon follow. Response times and backlogs will become longer and longer. Eventually, those customers will simply find better service elsewhere.
  • Productivity declines. According to Diana DeLonzor, author of Never Be Late Again: 7 Cures for the Punctually Challenged, employee tardiness costs U.S. businesses more than $3 billion each year in lost productivity. A person who is late 10 minutes each day has, by the end of a year, taken the equivalent of a week’s paid vacation.

If You’re the Manager

Dealing with employee tardiness is not fun, but if you’re the manager of a habitually late staff member, it’s up to you to rectify the situation.

  • Follow your company’s guidelines for dealing with problem employees. If necessary, draft a clear policy and be sure it’s enforced. Require team members to notify you if they’ll be late, and follow up to ensure their reasons were legitimate. Decisive action is key.

If You’re the Culprit

If you have poor time-management skills and are often late for work, take steps to change your habits so they don’t negatively impact others. Even being just a few minutes late here and there can add up.

  • Determine what makes you run late and make necessary adjustments. The most likely answer is: get an earlier start. Prepare as much as you can in advance; for instance, select and iron your clothes and pack lunch the night before. If you have schedule conflicts, check with your manager about changing your work hours to avoid tardiness.

Partner with a staffing agency in Nashville, TN!

For more tips on combatting employee tardiness and other areas posing challenges in your role as a manager, benefit from the personalized talent management services provided by Frontline Source Group. To get in touch with our staffing service in Nashville, TN, click here. Contact us to find the branch nearest to you or read our related posts to learn more!


Tagged Blog
Published on Mar 8, 2019