Staff lateness - and blaming traffic.

[minghis]

All good stuff, and I'm pleased to see so many pages of comments. This particular job role is time critical as it involves collecting people at a given time, in reality a little bit like a bus driver or a taxi driver - it's all about time.

If this particular part of the business is late it does have a knock on effect for everyone else. Flexi time is all well and good where appropriate, but we open at a set time and shut at a set time and whilst we can cope with the non critical aspects of the job being flexible someone that is rota'd to do the pick ups should really get in on time especially as they only live a few miles away. The traffic is usually bad, it always is, but what is annoying is that they don't bother to leave a bit early and find a different route like I would...

[Squirrelofwoe]

Vocal Minority said:

I used to work with one person who would rock up at 9.15 blaming the traffic.

Never could figure out why they didn't leave 15 minutes earlier

But did they always make mention of it upon arrival every morning, in the style of Reggie Perrin?!

"Twenty-two minutes late, black ice at Norbiton."
"Twenty-two minutes late, obstacles on the line at Berrylands."
"Twenty-two minutes late, badger ate a junction box at New Malden."
"Twenty-two minutes late, fed up by train delays, came by bike. Slow puncture at Peckham."
"Twenty-two minutes late, escaped puma, Chessington North."

[Thundersports]

A colleague of mine who has been in the trade for 25 years is usually 5-10 minutes late nearly every day. I know other people he's worked for and they've all said he's always late! Works through no lunch break, good at his job and difficult to replace trouble is some of the other staff have complained (one's who take a lunchbreak) difficult situation.

Edited by Thundersports on Monday 15th January 23:30

[Flat-6]

The reality of life is that you cant plan for unexpected events.

I live 6 miles from where i work on my current contract - usually it takes me 15-20 minutes.
Sometimes due to that fact that there is only 1 route, "st happens" and causes a good chunk of my colleagues and a large amount of Rolls Royce employees to get caught in the exact same jam - there is no point turning around as the alternative route is a good 15 miles and it probably as jammed.

Sometimes said 20 minute trip can take over an hour.

But I am not leaving the house an hour early just in case - I just stay late to compensate.
As this is such a common occurrence amongst the staff, there is absolutely no way to foresee or plan for it, its just accepted that some days a large number of us roll in a bit late, apologise and stay late that it's accepted as just the way it is with this location.

I would love to for once have a job that was close enough to home to not actually have to drive....
Even better work from home, alas WFH opportunities are nearly never advertised in IT/Web.

[red_slr]

Back in the day when on training courses as a young whipper snapper you had to sing a song if you were late. If several turned up late the rest had to do a dance whilst the last one in sang.

Imagine doing that now. Snowflakes would be straight to the daily mail!

[DJFish]

I've worked on a shift team for a long time, it's in our contract that we have to start 15mins early to effect a proper handover, if the oncoming shift is late the guy on shift has to wait, so everyone makes the effort as we know that one day the glove may be on the other foot.

Having said that, sometimes people get delayed, it's just one of those things.
The boss doesn't care as he knows we'll always have the job covered.

Two guys were sacked for taking the piss & spitting the 12hrs between them & only doing c.8hrs each.
When they audited our hours from our key card entries most people were slightly positive or negative but nothing to worry about.
My wife was at an investment bank at the time (9-5) so she started at 7 & because we travelled into work together I was starting my 8-8 shift just after 7, causing my hours to be massively positive but also pushing others into negative hours, however the auditors could see that they only left after I'd arrived so all was well.

The guy with the most hours was a chap who was going through a messy divorce and lived in his car, he used to get in at 6 to use the shower.

[RTB]

Time critical roles are one thing, you can't have habitual lateness but for all other roles I can't see the point in being a stickler. I guess it depends if you pay your staff for output or attendance....

[Jockman]

RTB said:

Time critical roles are one thing, you can't have habitual lateness but for all other roles I can't see the point in being a stickler. I guess it depends if you pay your staff for output or attendance....

If only it were that simple.

[Yipper]

As the old saying goes -- 50% of any job is simply arriving, staying and leaving on time. It's really not hard.

[Robertj21a]

RTB said:

Time critical roles are one thing, you can't have habitual lateness but for all other roles I can't see the point in being a stickler. I guess it depends if you pay your staff for output or attendance....

I guess it's far more to do with whether the worker has any personal pride.

[Granfondo]

Just let staff come and go as they please, what could possibly go wrong!

[cat with a hat]

Yipper said:

As the old saying goes -- 50% of any job is simply arriving, staying and leaving on time. It's really not hard.

Its really not that simple.

I assume you don't work in a high pressure role or with an international company?

[CardinalBlue]

Habitual lateness is a massive pet peeve of mine.

On my bank of desks, I would say about 40% are late at least twice a week and one in particular is late pretty much every day. I wouldn't mind as much, but some of these people walk to work, and live jut a few minutes away. For me, it's just a complete lack of respect to the rest of their colleagues who make it in on time. I drive an hour to get in, and make it in.

I appreciate things happen outside of our control, but for some people there really is no excuse to be late day after day.

[Robertj21a]

CardinalBlue said:

Habitual lateness is a massive pet peeve of mine.

On my bank of desks, I would say about 40% are late at least twice a week and one in particular is late pretty much every day. I wouldn't mind as much, but some of these people walk to work, and live jut a few minutes away. For me, it's just a complete lack of respect to the rest of their colleagues who make it in on time. I drive an hour to get in, and make it in.

I appreciate things happen outside of our control, but for some people there really is no excuse to be late day after day.

In my experience, the worst culprits are invariably those who live closest.

[Matt_N]

Flat-6 said:

I live 6 miles from where i work on my current contract -

I would love to for once have a job that was close enough to home to not actually have to drive....

Err, even if you're not that fit that's a 30-35 minute bike ride, 20 mins if you have a reasonable level of fitness.

[RTB]

Robertj21a said:

I guess it's far more to do with whether the worker has any personal pride.

I don't have any set starting time, I generally get in anytime between 8am and 9.30am depending on what meetings I have. Some mornings I will have a lot of calls that are easier to do from home so I'll call my boss and stay at home.

I work for a Big Pharma company with a reasonably responsible job, all my boss or the drug projects I work on are worried about is that milestones and deadlines are hit and the work is of good quality. Getting in for an arbitrary time and sitting in a freshly pressed shirt is less important than getting the work done. I guess different companies have different cultures.

[Flat-6]

Matt_N said:

Flat-6 said:

I live 6 miles from where i work on my current contract -

I would love to for once have a job that was close enough to home to not actually have to drive....

Err, even if you're not that fit that's a 30-35 minute bike ride, 20 mins if you have a reasonable level of fitness.

Err,

A: I don't have a bike, because I'm severely asthmatic.
B: It goes over possibly the most dangerous stretches of road in the country for cycling.
C: I often need to move a collection of large / Heavy equipment to/from work.

Get off your high horse.

[mandos_01]

red_slr said:

Back in the day when on training courses as a young whipper snapper you had to sing a song if you were late. If several turned up late the rest had to do a dance whilst the last one in sang.

Imagine doing that now. Snowflakes would be straight to the daily mail!

I had to sing "A Whole New World" from Aladdin when I turned up late on the last day of a 4 day course after we'd all been out on the lash the night before.

That was 6 months ago!

[anonymous-user]

minghis said:

All good stuff, and I'm pleased to see so many pages of comments. This particular job role is time critical as it involves collecting people at a given time, in reality a little bit like a bus driver or a taxi driver - it's all about time.

If this particular part of the business is late it does have a knock on effect for everyone else. Flexi time is all well and good where appropriate, but we open at a set time and shut at a set time and whilst we can cope with the non critical aspects of the job being flexible someone that is rota'd to do the pick ups should really get in on time especially as they only live a few miles away. The traffic is usually bad, it always is, but what is annoying is that they don't bother to leave a bit early and find a different route like I would...

Can't this one person start the day by driving direct to your first customer?
That would remove at least 2 journeys, it would also make it more embarrassing for them if they were late

[Robertj21a]

RTB said:

I don't have any set starting time, I generally get in anytime between 8am and 9.30am depending on what meetings I have. Some mornings I will have a lot of calls that are easier to do from home so I'll call my boss and stay at home.

I work for a Big Pharma company with a reasonably responsible job, all my boss or the drug projects I work on are worried about is that milestones and deadlines are hit and the work is of good quality. Getting in for an arbitrary time and sitting in a freshly pressed shirt is less important than getting the work done. I guess different companies have different cultures.

Clearly, if you don't have a set starting time then the time you start is rather irrelevant !!