Do you have a series of consistently late employees? You know the ones. They live close to work but manage to be late almost every day. Some may blame the traffic in Ireland, while others have no such excuse. While you could utilize a number of employee timekeeping methods, you could also just get right to the heart of the matter. Every employer’s goal is to get those employees to arrive on time. Here’s how you can do this without resorting to extreme methods.

 

Understand When to Reach Out to Your Employee

Late employees wreak havoc on your business. They disturb their fellow workers, messing up their concentration. They make it tough for people to get things done, especially if they hold the virtual keys to parts of a project. On top of this, those late employees can mess with other worker’s morale, if they come in late day after day without being punished.

However, you need to know when to reach out to those employees. There are two situations to be aware of:

 

1) The employee is late once in a while.

An employee who is late to work every once in a while – once a month or less – is not someone that you need to worry about. That employee knows that they need to be one time, and they may even apologize for their lateness. If you see a pattern developing, such as being late on the same day each month, then have a chat with them. Otherwise, leave them alone.

 

2) The employee is consistently late.

This is the employee that you need to worry about. Someone who is constantly late to everything is a problem. Whether the problem is the traffic in Ireland, the fact that they spend their evenings in a pub with their coworkers or something else entirely, you need to get to the bottom of it. These types of late employees are the ones that hold their coworkers back and decrease morale.

 

Reach Out In the Correct Way

Before you discipline your consistently late employee, you need to find a means of reaching out to them. Communication can really help in this situation.

 

Open Communication

Your employee may have a good reason why he or she is late every day. For example, they might have young children and need to wait for the (perpetually late) babysitter to arrive. They might be able to get up in time. They might not have a vehicle and have to rely on public transportation. No matter the circumstances, if you sit the person down and talk to them, they should explain why they are always late.

 

Send them to HR

Late employees can cause major problems between supervisors and coworkers if they aren’t punished appropriately. If you’ve spoken with them and they’re still late, it’s time for a write-up. Consider contacting the HR team for advice on how to handle constant lateness while keeping the Irish labour laws in mind. Sometimes a threat or even a simple write up is all that they need in order to straighten up and stay on time.

 

Use Employee Timekeeping Devices

Finally, you can use employee timekeeping devices in order to track the hours that your late employee works. If it turns out that they have a good excuse for being late, you can always adjust their hours to have them start late and end the day after everyone else. You might even be able to let them work from home on certain days. This is where those employee timekeeping methods come into play.

 

Traditional Timekeeping Methods

Utilizing traditional employee timekeeping methods, such as tracking software, can help you see just how much work that your late worker puts in. If you adjust their hours in order to force them to work a standard eight hour day, then this is a good option. Even if they start later than everyone else, their hours will be tracked accordingly.

 

Mobile Timekeeping

On the other hand, if you want to allow that employee to work from home, then you can use a mobile timekeeping method. This stays within the realm of Irish labor laws and will show that they can get things done in a time frame that works for them. You won’t have to worry about them being late to work, and they can still log their hours worked from their mobile device.

Overall, you need to stay on top of employees who are constantly late. Something needs to be done, whether it’s better communication, a write-up, or even a work hour adjustment. In the end, you need to do what’s best for all of your employees, including the ones who can’t get to work on time.