Although you want everyone to be at work on time, you also want to be flexible, especially to your valued employees, who seem to put in more time at the office than the others. You need to implement standard hours to punish marginal employees who sometimes arrive late, assuming that if others are permitted to do so, so are they. Al Diamond helps you to develop a tardiness policy that's fair, consistent, and sensitive.
Tardiness is a difficult issue (much more so than absence because of the issue of “professionalism” and the emotional issue of “respect”). Absence is straightforward; an employee is either absent more times than permitted, or they're not. And there are a variety of ways to attack the problem: From docking pay for excessive absences through a warning system and, finally, termination.
How important is it to have your employees at their desks working at your company's start time? It's essential if no one's present when the phone rings — but that's seldom the case. The phones usually don't start ringing off the hook at exactly 8:30 or 9:00, and it's rare for all employees to be late on the same day. So, assuming that this isn't a critical issue, is it important enough to set hard-and-fast rules enforced by sanctions? Or should your tardiness policy require “make-up” time and cooperation to assure that customers are served if someone is late? This depends on whether employees subject to these rules are considered professionals or clerks.
One caveat: Start time is the time when the office opens and all employees without specific arrangements with management are expected to be at work. Occasional tardiness with a reasonable excuse should be treated with flexibility — unless you run a highly regimented organization. The tardiness that we address in this article is occasional lateness without good cause. Don't allow employees to re-set their own work hours, even if they work late every night. Changing hours or flextime is a different issue that only management can address.
Try calling the law firm that you use at 9:00 a.m. How many of the lawyers (or even paralegals) are present? Yet the secretaries and assistants are there when the office opens. As professionals, lawyers and paralegals are expected to put in the hours needed to get the job done; always much more than the 35 to 40 hours required of clerical employees before overtime kicks in. Clerical employees at many law firms are also expected to work extended hours on occasion; but because they are, or should be, paid overtime, they're subject to more stringent rules (such as timeliness).
How different are insurance agencies from law firms? Some agency employees have CLU, CPCU, and other professional designations, while others are true clerical employees. Yet many agencies tend to treat all employees, except owners, producers, and some managers, as clerical workers subject to most agency regulations. What makes this issue even more complicated is that, in recent years, more agencies have been seeking to “professionalize” the very employees that they treat like clerks.
SO WHAT DO WE DO?
If you want your technical employees (and managers) to act like professionals, you must treat them that way. Expect them to respond to customer issues and requests regardless of how much time it takes to accomplish the goal. It also means that if they occasionally need to be late, it's OK — they more than make up for this lost time by working early mornings, late evenings, and weekends when needed.
On the other hand, if all employees are clerical (even the supposedly technical employees), a strict tardiness policy is acceptable. If an employee — no matter how valuable to the agency — violates this policy, you must take corrective action. You can't afford to make exceptions because the lawsuit will always come from the former employee who was not granted an exception.
Another issue affecting how agencies treat tardiness is emotional in nature. Many older agency owners and managers have a work ethic that was prevalent in the 1950s through the 1960s and into the 1970s. This standard involves being at work on time, dressed appropriately to serve customers, and working whatever hours were needed to satisfy customers.
These owners and managers feel that if they're able to be at work at the agency's start time, all employees should have the same work ethic. They recognize that the younger generations have different priorities (always considered as less work-oriented) but assume that this attitude can be changed to match the older owners' work ethic. And, most important, any disregard of this ethic is considered disrespectful of owners and managers.
Some of these owners and managers are “martyrs” by nature. Because they've succeeded by working long and hard hours, their work ethic must be the right one and anyone working for them must adhere to it. They don't consider the high percentage of divorces among owners and managers. Nor do they begrudge themselves their thousands of hours of golf and other recreational activities (justified by how hard they work the rest of the time) that aren't available to their lower-level employees. Generations X, Y, and Z (the more recent generations of employees) are more family-centered; they try to set priorities that will provide them with personal stability, as well as professional success. Often, the family priorities of these employees clash head on with pressure from their employers — not a pleasant situation!
This “do as I say, not as I do” group of owners remains very much with us (although their numbers are shrinking). These people are autocratic leaders and benevolent dictators who expect their employees to be at work on time, regardless of when — or if — the owners show up.
Owners with this mind-set need to understand that, with some notable exceptions, tardiness does not reflect a lack of respect by employees for them. If you ever feel outraged by the tardiness of your employees, this “respect” issue probably lies at the core. Don't lose good employees just because of your impression of their reasons for being late. Find out what caused the problem and remember the consistency rule: No policy is necessarily wrong if you manage it consistently.
The best way to handle tardiness is to differentiate professional employees from clerical workers and set rules appropriate for each type. Because clerical employees are traditionally non-exempt and subject to overtime, you can set strict standards for tardiness. Give greater latitude to professional employees, acknowledging that they contribute based on their job, rather than their work hours. Recognize that their work ethic is not in question. Just because they don't work like you doesn't mean that they're any less proud of their accomplishments. Treat them with the same respect as they give you.
Don't prosecute tardy workers when the real reason that you criticize them goes far beyond timeliness.