What is persistent lateness?
The Employement Appeals Tribunal concludes that persistent lateness of even a few minutes can amount to misconduct and this is grounds to start disciplinary proceedings.
Persistent lateness is when an employee arrives to work later than their contracted start time, and this happens repeatedly over a period or time. Punctuality may or may not show patterns.
The impact this has on teams are that is can cause disruption and demotivation. Other staff members may start to show patterns of the same behaviour. Those who usually are on time may start to lose trust in the business if they perceive that no action is being taken against those who are persistently late. This can cause a ripple affect and can trigger conflict between peers.
What’s worse is when employers do not address this. While they let this play out, they become increasingly frustrated with the employee, the relationship of mutual trust and confidence starts to grow faint. They then contact us for help. We now have a bigger issue at hand. We have to determine if this is no longer a misconduct issue on lateness, or if this is a conflict/performance issue. There’ll often be blurred lines due to the way the was managed in-house.
Naturally, there is some pushback from employees at this stage due to the heat between the two parties.
In some cases, the employee may have “good reason” for the lateness but has avoided coming forward with this. It may be that they feel they are unable to speak to managers about issues they are facing.
Our advice at HR Habitat Ltd is to address lateness issues as soon as possible;
1. First, discuss informally and issue a verbal warning if appropriate
2. If lateness persists, invite to a formal disciplinary hearing outlining the possible outcomes
3. Introduce an attendance monitoring process
4. Formally meet at the end of the assessment period with disciplinary action decision
If it turns out the reason for lateness is connected to health issues, caring responsibilities or other matters in line with the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010, then you will need to change course.
Founder of HR Habitat, award winner of "Best HR & Employment Law Consultancy, 2024" title. As featured in BBC Oline, BBC Asian Network Radio, Telegraph & more.
