EMPLOYEES' MOST OUTRAGEOUS 'LATE' EXCUSES

Here's something related to our working lives. It's an issue most commonly encountered, and often most problematic, by the bosses - tardiness. But how often have we encountered the outrageous yet creative excuses?

This following article provides a list of such excuses from a survey in the US. Have you encountered them in your workplace?

EMPLOYEES' MOST OUTRAGEOUS 'LATE' EXCUSES
By Chad Brooks, Business News Daily, 12 January 2012.

When it comes to excuses for being late for work, a new study shows American employees are very creative.

While traffic and lack of sleep top the CareerBuilder survey of employees' tardiness explanations, a wide range of more unusual excuses — from a cat having the hiccups to thinking they might have won the lottery — also cropped up among the nation's workers when they failed to show up on time.

The creativity may be necessary given the number of times such excuses are needed: Overall, 16 percent of employees arrive late to work once a week or more, the study revealed. Nearly 30 percent come in late at least once a month.

Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder, cautions against such behaviour.

"Punctuality — or lack thereof — can impact how your commitment, reliability and performance are perceived by your employer," she said.

And regularly showing up late can come with serious consequences. More than one-third of the employers surveyed have fired a staff member for not being at work on time.

The most common excuses for being late for work incorporated traffic issues, lack of sleep, bad weather, problems getting kids to school, transportation delays, spouses, pets and watching television.

Some of the more outrageous justifications reported by the employers included:

1. Employee's cat had the hiccups.

2. Employee got distracted watching the "Today" show [or any TV show “worth sacrificing” for].

3. Employee thought she had won the lottery (she hadn't).

4. Employee's angry roommate cut the cord to his phone charger, so it didn't charge and his alarm didn't go off.

5. Employee believed his commute time should count toward his work hours.

6. Employee claimed a fox stole her car keys.

7. Employee's leg was trapped between a subway car and the platform (turned out to be true).

8. Employee said he wasn't late because he had no intention of getting to work before 9 a.m. (his start time was 8 a.m.).

9. Employee was late because of a job interview with another firm.

10. Employee had to take a personal call from the state governor (turned out to be true) [translate that to our VIPs or VVIPs].

The study was based on surveys of more than 3,000 hiring managers and human resource professionals and 7,780 U.S. workers.

[Source: Business News Daily. Images added]

As a senior citizen with a long experience in human resource management (both in the government and private sectors), there have been many employee problems that can strain a day’s work (after all they are human!), and none as serious as poor performance.  I found tardiness the most annoying problem, but it’s solvable through counselling and a lot of patience. Tardiness turns into a serious problem only if it becomes habitual.

Here’s one common but bemusing tardiness case that I encountered. It's actually a common occurrence. The bemusing part was that the employee never applied for emergency leave; instead, he paid his last respect quickly and turned up for work just as swiftly.

1. Grandmother passed away – normal first incident, so was accepted.

2. Grandmother passed away - his wife’s grandma, so was excused.

3. Grandmother passed away - his foster grandma; was excused based on compassionate ground and given the benefit of the doubt.

4. Grandmother passed away – again. Needless to say, he was disciplined.

I thought then he was trying to be creative but went too far.

The strange part was that he never mentioned the grandfather who was then still alive. He could have saved himself all the trouble!

If any of you readers have any creative excuses from your employees, maybe you can share them with us.