Employee Question - What would you do?

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emahler

Senior Member
little background.....service oriented company, this incident occurs prior to a 4 hr project, not a long term project..

have to be at a customers facility at 7am....they are approx 45 min from our shop. tell the mechanic and apprentice to be at the shop at 6am...both live within 10min of shop (and yes, travel is paid)

mechanic is there for 6am...no apprentice...6:15 mechanic calls apprenice, no answer..mechanic leaves...at 6:30, the apprentice calls back, he overslept...

now, what would you do?

work can get done without apprentice....
 

nyerinfl

Senior Member
Location
Broward Co.
If it were my employee and he was a hard worker I would warn him that not showing up on time will cost him his job. Showing up to work late or not at all is something that doesn't sit well with me. If he's not a good worker and has a history of this, I'd think about new help.
 

sheldon_ace

Member
Location
Owego, NY
I say the train leaves at 6am, if your not on it, you find your own way there. If you want to work, than be there, if not than stay home. I am not a baby sitter, if a grown man cannot motivate themselves, than thats their problem.

Gerry
 

LawnGuyLandSparky

Senior Member
If you have an employee handbook - follow it. If you have a working agreement, follow that. Our contract stipulates lateness requires the contractor to start the apprentice 1/2 hour late, or if the lateness is over 1/2 hour, start him 1 hour late. More than an hourt late - sent home. A judge wouldn't look very fondly on the punishment for a 10 minute lateness is to lose the day's pay.

Whatever you do - the rule of thumbe is C.Y.A., and administer the absenteeism policy evenly across the board. Document all forms of absenteeism by docking the appropriate time lost. You may need legal payroll evidence in the future.
 

khixxx

Senior Member
Location
BF PA
sheldon_ace said:
I say the train leaves at 6am, if your not on it, you find your own way there. If you want to work, than be there, if not than stay home. I am not a baby sitter, if a grown man cannot motivate themselves, than thats their problem.

Gerry

Good answer.

I overslept and the company threatened me blablbablablabla. I worked there for 2 years and overslept one time and they acted like every thing was going to blow up.

A written or verbal warning is needed but still tell them you understand things happen. In the mean time if he can't get to the job have him do something else constructive that you were meaning to do but never got around to it in the shop.
 

cowboyjwc

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Simi Valley, CA
sheldon_ace said:
I say the train leaves at 6am, if your not on it, you find your own way there. If you want to work, than be there, if not than stay home. I am not a baby sitter, if a grown man cannot motivate themselves, than thats their problem.

Gerry

I agree with Gerry
 

petersonra

Senior Member
Location
Northern illinois
Occupation
engineer
Its the employee's responsibility to show up on time. If he doesn't, the consequences are his.

That does not mean you should shoot everyone that shows up late now and then, but it does need to be understood that their presence on time is desired, and if they can't handle that responsibility, they need to look elsewhere for employment.

I agree with another poster's statement about having a written policy on such things, and following it. If the policy does not work, change it so it works better, don't just selectively ignore it. Doing so is unfair to those that try to obey the rules.

OTOH, I would not get too worked up about it. Its just an apprentice. Better you find out now that he is not reliable than later on.
 

Rewire

Senior Member
As long as it is the first time I would have no issue with the employee finding his way to the job site on his time We do verbal warning ,a written warning ,then termination.We are an "at will' state so I can let anybody go without giving a reason but if I want to challenge unemployment benefits I need to document.
 
petersonra said:
IBetter you find out now that he is not reliable than later on.

Well, here's the question- what's the company's regular starting time? If he was asked to come in even an hour before normal starting time and messed up once, that's hardly an indication of overall unreliability. Some people's bodies simply can't cope with changing schedules. (My sister will wake up at 6am without a clock, but by 9pm, she's flat in bed. She pretty much can't vary that by more than a half an hour.)

Sometimes simply impressing the need for their presence will encourage them to use two alarm clocks. (I have to do that for 5am plane flights, since I usually work past 11pm.)

Another thought, how's this person on working overtime? Do they try to run out the moment the clock strikes or will they stick around for a couple of hours of OT when needed? Someone who doesn't grumble about that has value, too.
 

ITO

Senior Member
Location
Texas
LawnGuyLandSparky said:
...A judge wouldn't look very fondly on the punishment for a 10 minute lateness is to lose the day's pay...

As is a judge or a court would have anything to do with it at all...:roll:
 

Rewire

Senior Member
ITO said:
As is a judge or a court would have anything to do with it at all...:roll:
Yes Virginia there is a Judge, this type of thing goes to the NLRB all the time how far it goes depends on various factors but ultimately it could be before a judge.
 

ITO

Senior Member
Location
Texas
Hmm I did not realize other states did this.

Not here. If you send someone home for being late, that is your prerogatived. If they don't like it, they can quit and/or possibly file for unemployment, at which point you can contest it and then it would go before a mediator who is still not a judge. The Texas Workforce Commission takes a pretty dim view of people who cant seem to get to work on time.

Now if the guy was a minority and claimed discrimination, then a judge would probably get involved.
 
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ITO

Senior Member
Location
Texas
If they don't show up on time and miss their ride to the job there is nothing unfair about sending someone home. You should not be required to make work for them or provide alternate transporation in some kind of misguided effort to be fair.

This is clearly stated in my employee handbook, tardy employees can be sent home for the day. I usually don't start actually sending them home until it becomes a chronic problem, and then I have the documentation to do it.
 

Rewire

Senior Member
Unfortunatly as employers often we do not get to decide what is fair,labor law can be tricky and is often slanted to the employee even the wording of your employee handbook can be questioned.
 

emahler

Senior Member
it's pretty neat to hear everyone's opinion...

here are a few more items that may or may not alter your opinion....

1) we have a written policy...we followed it...i was just curious what others would do...

2) here is the day of the mechanic he was supposed to be with...
gsp exit 105 to newark airport (exit 13a on the nj turnpike) to east windsor (exit 8 on the turnpike) to long branch and back to shop at exit 105....total of about 100 miles +/-

so which job would you have him drive to? all of them? have the mechanic go out of his way at some point to meet up wih him?

thoughts?
 

growler

Senior Member
Location
Atlanta,GA
You could take him out to a job site and have him get his dirt out of " Boss Eric's " ditch.

That would help him to get his mind right.

It worked on Georgia chain gangs or at least the movie " Cool Hand Luke". :grin: :grin:

This guy's name isn't Luke is it. That would really be helpfull.
 
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emahler

Senior Member
growler said:
You could take him out to a job site and have him get his dirt out of " Boss Eric's " ditch.

That would help him to get his mind right.

It worked on Georgia chain gangs or at least the movie " Cool Hand Luke". :grin: :grin:

This guy's name isn't Luke is it. That would really be helpfull.


haha:D that would be awesome....but no, it's not....
 
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