Why Are Your Employees Late?

Are your employees constantly late? Employee punctuality problems could be a sign your staff is not as motivated as they should be. Repeated tardiness could also be an indicator your workplace policies aren’t allowing a good work/life balance, or a sign employees are having difficulty managing their time.

If you find you have repeated problems with employee punctuality impacting at least a few of your workers, some of the corrective steps you should take include:

• Determining if there are other signs that staff motivation is suffering. While tardiness can be a sign employee motivation is down, sometimes there are other factors that account for constant lateness. You need to assess whether you have a staff motivation problem on your hands or not. If there are other indicators your employees are not into their jobs (like lots of sick days or high turnover rates), you need to get to the heart of why morale is so low.
• Evaluating your time and attendance policies. Employees are sometimes late because they cannot manage their work/life balance. Consider whether the demands on your staff are reasonable or not. If you want people to work late and be in really early, for example, this could lead to stress resulting in tardiness.
• Talking to staff about challenges in getting to work on time. Staff members who are always late may have a variety of personal reasons for not being able to get to work. Talk with them to find out what challenges they are facing and to see if there are any changes the company could make. For example, if staff members are late because it’s too hard to find a parking space in the lot, you could consider looking for off-site parking or arranging an employee carpool so you have fewer vehicles to accommodate. You need to know what the problem is before you can determine if your company will have a role in solving it.

While there may be underlying issues that lead to punctuality problems, sometimes employees are just tardy because they aren’t responsible. You need a good staff that cares about their jobs and that is committed to doing good work for your organization. Let the staffing professionals at SmartTalent help you to hire great people in Kirkland, Fife, Renton, Lacey, Lynnwood, Everett and surrounding areas.  Give us a call today to find out more.