Lateness advice guide for employers from Peninsula Business Services UK. Employers call us today on 0800 0282 420.
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How to Address Lateness with an Employee
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HR management outsourcing is when a team of experts manage your HR by looking after your contracts, policies, and procedures.
These are the HR essentials every business needs. Without them, your staff could bring successful claims against you, you could lose thousands in legal fines, and even face prosecution. Never underestimate the benefits of HR support for a small business.
We have years of experience in providing HR for SMEs and HR management outsourcing. Contact us to see how we can support you, including HR advice for small businesses - as well as medium and large companies.
Good human resource management is having round the clock support when you need it the most.
Whenever there’s a staff challenge or an important legal update, you just pick up the phone and get the help you need – no matter the time or place.
The main benefits of HR outsourcing are:
- Cost saving: Reduces the expenses for such things are hiring, training and employing an in-house HR team.
- Time saving: Saves time for staff members away from HR tasks.
- Improves expertise and compliance: Provides ongoing advice and support to ensure complete and total compliance.
- Reduces risk: Reduces the risk of any payroll and compliance failures.
Outsourcing HR is cheaper than hiring internal staff and saves you money overall when it comes to your HR service. Plus, you avoid making mistakes that could cost you heavily in claims and legal fines down the line. Every business should consider HR support as a way to avoid claims.
Peninsula is one of the leading HR outsourcing services in the UK, and by working with us you get access to our HR advisory service. Contact us for your outsourced SME HR today.
The key functions of HR outsourcing services are:
- Payroll and benefits: Helps a business to manage employee wages, tax processing, and employee enrolment.
- Recruitment and onboarding: Helps with job descriptions, sourcing new candidates, interviewing, and ensuring a smooth onboarding process.
- Compliance with employment law: Helps to ensure compliance with ever-changing employment legislation.
- Employee relations: Helps to manage grievance and disciplinary procedures, and any ongoing support that's required.
- HR admin: Helps to handle and manage daily tasks, such as employee records, sorting employment contracts, and processing any leave requests.
- Training and development: Helps to create and deliver staff training programs to improve employees' skills.
If your employees are disengaged it can be very bad for your business, so you should look for ways to boost their outlook—find out how you can go about this.
Most business owners hope to have a team of employees they can trust. But unfortunately, no employer or workplace is perfect. If an employee commits fraud at work, your company could suffer and face financial losses.
Alcohol intoxication, sexual harassment, property damage – these are just a few HR concerns you might face on your Christmas party. But don’t let these ruin your festive vibes. Let’s look at the best ways to minimise HR risks during your work Christmas party.
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Having employees arrive on time to work is vital for all employers and the day-to-day productivity of any business.
Of course there will always be valid reasons for lateness on occasion that are out of the employee’s control – such as transport or weather delays – but that does not excuse a consistent failure to arrive on time.
This form of habitual lateness is not only unprofessional; it is effectively a breach of agreed terms and conditions as documented in the employment contract and must be addressed by the employer as soon as possible.
Time is money, as they say, and absenteeism equates to lower productivity. Employers should always define a clear employee lateness policy that makes employees aware of their responsibility to be punctual.
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Due to recent changes in legislation, more organisations are now granting their employees the option of flexible working than ever before. In this case, it is even more vital to set a clear policy around punctuality and how it relates to the nature of flexibility available to employees.
A common thread here is the idea that any time lost in the morning can be made up by the employee staying later after work. However, this may not be acceptable for some businesses who operate primarily between set hours each day.
Make it clear to employees how they should be managing their own time to meet the best interests of the company.
Keep a track record
If an employer notices an employee starting to arrive consistently late, they should document these occasions in an attendance record.
This will provide clear evidence of lateness and also helps the employer to calculate exactly how much time the employee has missed over a specified period.
In the event that the issue cannot be resolved informally, these records are vital to support the employer’s decision to take disciplinary action.
Progressive and consistent discipline
When an employee’s absence begins to give their employer cause for concern, the first step is to arrange a confidential meeting in order to discuss the issue informally.
This will give the employer a clear idea as to whether there is a valid personal reason causing their lateness. It is also important to point out in this initial meeting that all employees are expected to arrive promptly for work, and that the same professional standards apply to everybody.
In most cases, the employee will address their behaviour and make a conscious effort to arrive at work on time. However, old habits can be hard to break and it may not be long before the employee falls back into their old pattern of lateness.
The employer is completely within their rights to instigate a disciplinary procedure, issue appropriate warnings and, if the problem persists, dismissal.
The law behind punctuality
The Employment Rights Act 1996 documents an employer’s ability to dismiss a member of staff for poor conduct and failure to meet the requirements of their contract.
Summary
It is the responsibility of the employer to provide and remind all staff that they are expected to follow a clear lateness and absenteeism policy.
If a pattern of consistent lateness or absenteeism emerges, the employer should record each instance and first arrange an informal, confidential meeting with the employee to discuss.
Should the problem continue over a longer period of time, further disciplinary action may be required.
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