Company Enforces Same Punishment Regardless of Lateness, Employee Takes Their Sweet Time

Managers (especially new ones) usually come up with ridiculous rules without considering human behavior and basic cause and effect. If you enforce the same punishment for someone who shows up 5 minutes late to work as someone who arrives 3 hours late to work, do you really think this will prevent general lateness? No, more likely you'll have more employees showing up very late to work, because why not take your sweet time if being a few minutes late results in a write-up? u/ActualMis's new bosses had to learn this the hard way after implementing an unreasonable policy on lateness, which did nothing but hurt productivity and morale.

Posted by Mel Dawn

“Same punishment for being 5 minutes late as being 3 hours late? Sure, no problem!” Posted by u/ActualMis

The comment section

“I'd heard of another story of a man who was a jailer that became a warlord because his prisoners escaped and the penalty for allowing escapes was death so he joined them as a comrade.” said u/noahtheboah36.

“Managers waste more time & energy tracking latecomers than is warranted within the business' mission. The mission is not making sure all employee positions are staffed at starting time. When I managed, I told my employees that if they thought they'd be a few minutes late if they rushed to slow down and show up in a reasonable time. I'd rather have someone come in late than visit them in the hospital or go to their funeral. They could make up the time over the next two weeks. Same with lunch hour errands but I expected notice. The work got done and morale stayed high.” said u/ecp001.

“Same at big box store I used to work at. Punch in 5 minutes late, earns you a write-up. 3 write-ups in some time period (I forget how long) earns you termination. Every employee learned pretty quick to call off if you were going to be late. No repercussions for calling in sick.” said u/Safe-Ad-99.