It is very common to find people arriving late at work. There are a variety of reasons for coming late that varies from personal reasons to traffic to weather conditions, the list is endless. It is important to understand the impact of late coming on the organization.
Late coming is infectious, if not controlled can easily become the culture of an organization. While it is nice to be flexible, the late arrival once sets in the culture of an organization is easily seen in task completion and deadline adherence. Organization that have a high rate of late coming tend to struggle in meeting deadlines. This is due to the ripple effect on the overall work environment. If staff does not make it on time then meetings cannot start on time, this waiting leads to wastage of manpower which affects the other dependent tasks. 10 minutes late every day over one year is equivalent to over 5 man days loss per person.
It is therefore very crucial for an organization to identify a punctuality index and track the adherence on a regular basis. It is important to analyze whether the index is lower at a certain time of the year (Seasonal – due to festivities), lower for a certain cadre/grade (lack of discipline due to seniority) or whether it is sporadic (lack of policy adherence or workplace culture issue).