Shalini,

There is a reward for punctual attendance : it's called the eligibility to receive a salary.

Set up the margin of freedom (e.g., 3 hrs late in 30 days is OK) you want to allow your employees ; then start accounting anything over and above as leave / loss of pay. To begin with, subject yourself to this rule ; all will fall in line !

John

Hi Shalini,

Good question…

Well, we all know that appreciation & encouragements go a longer way with a positive outcome than punishments & fines which in return gives more negativity.

I know of a company who encourages its employees with some fixed bonus points in case they login before their shift timings (or) if they stay back late to complete their work up to a certain amount of time.

This has its own positive & negative points…

Yes, for sure there will be a lot of competition for employees to clock-in before time & gain the bonus points. But for many it would just be a game!
It can act as a good catalyst in the beginning, but it would lose its color after sometime, if employees don’t really get the essence of it.

Encouraging the “Staying back late”? that has its own disadvantages, you end up having employees working late, just because they have prolonged their actual work on “purpose” to stay back in the evening & gain some points…in case this is to be implemented, coordination & observation by the reporting managers plays a very important role to identify who is genuine & who is not.

The culture of being punctual should be injected, build & developed right from the joining date & to be continued religiously. Employees should understand being “punctual” is a part of their job & the very first step to their profession. HR & the managers’ punctuality would be the best promoter.

Staying back late & completing the task allotted are signs of “commitment” to work & responsibility to their job! This indeed has to be appreciated…

Now a days, companies follow the “flexible” timing method, but again, this needs to be integrated with a very strong system of project management & work-progress monitoring which may or may not be possible for most managers who are busy enough with their own work & day to day targets.

We can always keep a limit for “extra hours” & award the employee(s) who has an average attendance higher than that limit.
It can be a good boost up for the punctual & reminder to the irregulars. This way it will not be a direct hint from the company’s side for being on-time.

On the other hand, the late comers should be dealt with strictly, especially if they are regularly irregular, which not only affects their performance but disturbs their colleagues’ schedules too.

Speaking to them to find out the reason & understand their problems for late coming would be a good start. However, to avoid spreading the virus of “unpunctuality” HR should be firm enough on its decision & actions against the late comers.
Late coming with no prior intimation, sudden “ill” health & unwanted leaves, too many breaks in the office hours…etc. need to be addressed ASAP.
e.g. issuing a memo, deducting their late coming hours as a leave, or may be as LOP?

These rules & policies should be well informed in the induction it self to avoid such cases.

Waiting for others' responses too.

Diana

Hi Shalini,

Its a very nice topic you have chosen for discussion and Diana has given an apt reply to it. Most of us think of the actions to be taken after the employees have be become Impunctual or irregular. Instead we should first explore the reasons what are the prime reasons which strike off impunctuality and irregularity.

In my previous organisation we used to have an employee who used to stay very close to the office and still she used to come regularly irregular. And even after coming to office she used to have her breakfast in the working hours and disturbing other employees. And we used hear open comments from rest of the employees about the state of affairs and why the employee is not being reprimanded for the same. Initially we called her for a discussion and tried to know whether there were any issues from the Organisations end or her personal end which is making her impunctual. And we came to know that the employee's pay was unsatisfactory and she was not regularised. Immediately we reviewed her performance and made the employee permanent basing on the performance we raised the pay too. After this the employee became regular and punctual for few days. And again the employee started coming late to office and repeated the same behaviour and then we issued a memo after one more round of discussion. Then we understood that there are no particular reasons but its just laid back attitude on the part of employee and it was creating bad blood in the Organisation so we had to finally terminate the employee.

And in my present organisation, we have a group of employees who were staying late in the office every day and were logging in late every day to office. After thorough discussions we have found out that the employees were bachelors and were staying in hostels. To avoid boredom and to skip buying dinners they used to stay back at office eating their meals at the cost of the company wasting company resources like electricity, computers etc. Then we instructed all employees that they should be working late in the office only upon written instructions from their respective Department Heads. And yes we were successful.

So, the reasons may differ. So would be the action to be taken. But yes definitely some recognition should be given to employees who are productive and at the same time punctual and regular. We should not reward people just because they are puntual and regular.

Regards,
Manjari.