Do you have someone on your team that is consistently late to work? If so, how do you handle it? And to be clear, I am not talking about situations that are outside of someone’s control, like a flat tire or a dead battery. I am talking about the employee who is late to work every day and there is no valid reason for it.
I am the guy who arrives early for everything. It doesn’t matter where we are going, I arrive 15-20 minutes early every single time. I arrive early to work, early to lunch meetings, early to doctors appointments, early to my kids’ baseball games, etc. There is something within me that hates the thought of being late, so I plan accordingly and make sure that it never happens. But, I’ve been in ministry long enough to know that everyone doesn’t operate the same way as me.
As the Executive Pastor of our church, when does it become necessary for me to address this issue with someone on our team? Do I need to talk with someone if they arrive at 9:01 am? What about 9:03 am? What about 9:08 am? Etc. And, is it really worth it to have “corrective conversations” with someone if they are only late one time? Or, do they need to be late a certain number of times before it is addressed?
As the Executive Pastor of your church, you need to think through these things, and you need to be consistent. If you don’t address things like this with your team, it will cause problems with other employees, especially the ones who consistently arrive early. Eventually, they will begin to question why they are arriving early if other employees are allowed to arrive late (this happened at our church a few years ago).
After years of serving in this role, here is where I have landed on this issue. In our Employee Handbook (you can see our Employee Handbook HERE), we explain in our Work Schedules & Attendance Policy that our team can arrive as early as they want, but they need to arrive by 9:00 am at the latest. However, what I don’t explain in my handbook (because I don’t want it to be abused) is that I provide a 15-minute grace period, meaning that someone is not considered “late” as long as they arrive by 9:15 am.
By providing this 15-minute grace period, we are able to avoid a lot of unnecessary “corrective conversations.” For example, I don’t want someone to think they got in trouble just because they got stuck at one-too-many red lights on the way to work. It’s just not worth it to me. It’s not a hill worth dying on. I would rather let it go, and focus on more important things.
However, if I have an employee who arrives to work after 9:15 am, I take note of it. But even still, I show grace. I actually don’t address it with them unless I notice a pattern of it happening at least three times in a 30-day period. But, if it’s just a one-time thing, I let it go. In my experience, you always come out ahead when you show grace.
So to summarize, we ask everyone to arrive by 9:00 am. However, I provide a 15-minute grace period (that they don’t know about), meaning that someone is not considered “late” as long as they arrive by 9:15 am. And, if they arrive after 9:15 am, I only address it with them if it happens three times in a 30-day period.
How do you handle this situation? I would love to hear from you. Have you found a different way to be more helpful? Please respond and let me know your thoughts!
