Survey Shows Workers On Time More Often
A survey of nearly 3900 employers and 2500 employees by the job site, CareerBuilder.com, shows that employees are improving in one area: showing up for work on time. Over the last two years, the number of workers who said they arrived late to work at least once a week declined from 20 percent to 15 percent.
At a time when employers are asking for more productivity out of their employees, it’s a bit surprising that tardiness is actually going down—unless those same workers are realizing how valuable their jobs really are. A quick check of unemployment figures, or seeing friends and family lose jobs and struggle with finding work, could be inspiring employees to do what’s expected, like being on time for work.
CareerBuilder does not ask respondents to explain why they are increasingly making it to work on time; however, they are asked why they’re late. Among the reasons given:
- Traffic (listed by 30% of respondents)
- Lack of sleep (listed by 19%
- Bad weather
- Delays in getting kids to school
Some of the more creative reasons employees gave for coming to work late were wardrobe issues, dealing with pets and public transportation issues.
But those common reasons for being late to work pale in comparison with these, supplied by hiring managers:
- I was attacked by a cat
- My karma was out of sync
- I injured myself with a fork
- My car is infested with bees
- My hair is hurting my head
- I’m not late: the clock is wrong
- I knew I was going to be late, so I stopped to buy donuts for everyone
While these inventive excuses are entertaining, tardiness is nothing to laugh about. In fact, nearly a third of employers said they have terminated an employee for being late.
