Employee slightly late every morning.

[ElphabaTheGreen]

NHS inpatient therapy team. I’m a team lead. Working hours are 8am-4pm.

One of our assistants drifts in slightly after 8am every morning - only a few minutes, never later than 8:05. Her work is otherwise absolutely fine - she’s lovely to have in the team. She leaves on the dot at 4pm.

I really can’t get sweaty about the very slight lateness as it has zero impact on her work, and neither can my co-team lead. However one of the other senior therapists (subordinate to us) gets really irked by it, thinks it’s lazy and insists she doesn’t work her core hours as a result. This same therapist works way over her working hours to the point that it covers up service gaps - I tried pointing out that her excess of hours does more damage to the service than the assistant missing a few minutes each week but she wasn’t buying it and thinks we need to address it.

At the end of the day, it’s down to me and the other team lead who are on the same page - we don’t see the point in breeding ill will over a few minutes when it doesn’t affect her work or the service, but am I missing something?

Getting changed is not work.

Not at home into day clothes it's not. But regardless of policy, putting safety equipment on (which is what uniform is in the NHS) should be 'work'.

It's interesting how people are so ready to assume policy based on expediency for employers, should be accepted as 'right' by workers. Logging on in a call centre should be 'work' too. I certainly wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't, right?

It’s actually an amazing team Disorganised. I love them all to bits - probably one of the reasons I don’t want to do anything to upset the applecart I guess. I definitely wouldn’t be looking for a job elsewhere just over this - I’d sort it first.

It would have to be a case of ‘it has been noticed’. I’m on the wards when she gets in so I’m going on the reports (of one person, it must be said...)

Do you all get paid for the extra time you have to be in work and get changed before starting shift?
If not that would irk me.
I start work at same time, however never know where in the large hospital we have to be. So report to office at 8 and then be on our way. However manage thinks we should all arrive at around 7:45 to be in the specific place for that day, they don’t want to pay us for being in the office at that time though.

No we don’t Poppies. I end up being in the building 7:45-16:10 in order to work the actual hours in addition to changing. If we want to start adding that up to hours per months/extra days per year, it’s quite a lot...

If you perceive senior therapist's unpaid OT as the bigger issue, then I wonder if this could be an opportunity to address that?

Could you acknowledge that they've raised the issue of timekeeping and paid hours etc, and explain you'd like to tighten things up across the team. Then perhaps in a more general way at a team meeting, you could explain that you have been thinking about this issue and you'd like all team members to consider their time management - arriving and leaving on time. You could speak in general terms about the impact of arriving slightly late on team morale, and of working unpaid overtime and masking service gaps.

Obvs senior therapist would know what you're talking about, but assistant wouldn't feel singled out...?

Spinach’s post is brilliant! Absolutely do that.

Every job I have had even as a teenager I expect to be ready to work at start time.

I had a colleague who went for lunch at 11.55 every day and it was frustrating I rarely eat breakfast so I would be counting down to 12 only for her to swan off early. Really it shouldn't effect me but it was irritating.

We’ve addressed the working overtime directly and repeatedly with her over the course of years. Short of getting security to remove her from the building at 4pm (which they wouldn’t do) we’ve had to just take the position that she’s doing herself as much a disservice as anyone else. It’s why I turned her hours back on her as a reverse argument when she (and only she) raised the objections about the late one. I don’t think she has much else to do in her life apart from work, sadly.

I'm often a similar amount of time late it doesnt impact on anyone or my work as everyone else is making tea and chatting waiting for the morning meeting. I physically can't get to work any earlier with school drop offs etc, breakfast clubs only run on certain mornings. I let my manager know and arranged that I would make up the time at the end of each day.

Can you ask her why she is late? It may be that she gets the bus in, so shes either 5 mins late or an hour early. Just tell her she needs to make up her time.

If she isn’t allowed to come in in her uniform then she should be paid for the time she is changing into it. Getting changed IS work if you have to do it when you get there and aren’t allowed to come in wearing the clothes you have to work in.

Same as in my office job, the time it takes to log into my computer is paid time. In my last post it would take at least 20 mins to log in of a morning (usually half an hour) - if I had to do that on my own time unpaid so I was “ready to work” at 8am that would mean an average of of 2.5 hours unpaid per week, = more than a whole working day a month.... not even counting the ten mins it took to log off at the end of the day.

I understand why it’s causing resentment amongst others, but by the same token I would resent having to turn up 15 mins early to get changed. If there is no valid reason for this, then employees should be able to come in in uniform. If there are reasons (hygiene? I don’t know...) then it should be factored into the paid time.

I have a job where you have to get changed there and it’s a bloody nightmare.
I’m a single parent to 3 children, and all my family live in another country so I have literally no help whatsoever, and the school club won’t take the children until 7.35am. So every single day I have to drop them, then pretty much run to work full pelt from childcare, I get in work every single day at about 7.55 and then I have to get changed.

Usually I’m out for 8am however sometimes it isn’t as easy as it sounds, the changing room can be busy, your shoes could’ve been moved and you have to find them, the uniform you change into usually has missing sizes so you have to run into the men’s changing room to find the correct size uniform.
So sometimes I am also out just after 8am (it’s pretty rare though)
If someone spoke to me I would be listing all of those reasons. As to why I’m sometimes a minute or two over so before you speak to her you have factors like this affecting this lady that you could address first?

I think the other person complaining seems like a total jobsworth tbh, if she wants to be a martyr and come in early and leave late every day then that’s her business, she can’t expect everyone else to do the same.

In my opinion if the woman being complained about is in work before 8am every day then I don’t think that you can do much about it really without looking petty and spoiling the atmosphere.
Surely she could argue it’s unfair because staff who don’t have to get changed arrive later than her and aren’t classed as late because they don’t have to change first and they also get out before her because she works her full shift and then has to get changed.

I have to be honest if someone pulled me about this I’d probably look for another job as they’re already getting approx 10mins of my time for free a day while I’m changing so 50 mins a week and they’re being picky about a few minutes missed work over the week.

The uniform changing is for infection control reasons and it absolutely boils my piss, because it also makes my commute that much tighter around childcare like you ihate. Quite apart from there being zero evidence that infection is transmitted between hospital and the general community and vice versa on uniforms, NONE of the nurses or HCAs change and they’re exposed to way more blood/shit/piss than we are - they come to and from work in uniform. Furthermore, I could understand the changing onsite argument if our uniforms were kept and laundered onsite, but they’re not. We have to take them home to launder and bring them back in again to then get changed into them in work. What on Earth the difference is between carrying them in and wearing them in, I have no idea - I think all they’re worried about is complaints from Joe Public if we’re caught in Tesco in uniform, but like I said, doesn’t seem to apply to our nurses.

But that’s a different rant. Single-handedly derailing my own thread, there

I am in same job as you and am fairly lenient about stuff like this providing it goes both ways so the leaving on the dot of 4 would mean I had to have a word. The way I have tackled it in the past is a kindly conversation along the lines of " I have noticed you struggle to be ready to start by 8, would you like your agreed hours adjusted slightly such as 8.10 to 4. 10? " Once I discovered it was a bus timetable thing and they agreed a change of hours and the other time they suddenly started making it on time. Re the uniform, we are allowed to wear it to and from work if we come by car and go straight home. Not supposed to shop en route home etc. Who is being strict about this?

The uniform thing is Trust policy, vdb. I have no idea why therapists are the only one who enforce it. Drives me mad.

And just to chuck my moan in, then all the visitors come in with all the outside clothes on! As pp I understand re nurses, docs, phlebotomists etc but AHPs?

As in I agree about the zero evidence of infection control re outside clothes by visitors but when that's the reasoning for making staff change at work!

Changing into uniform at work is no different to getting your stuff out of your locker and setting up in a hot desking office though, which loads of people have to do. Or if you work in retail you'd have to go and put your coat and bag away and then get onto the shop floor. We all have to be ready to actually start working at the appointed time surely?

Would quietly mention it now: sounds like she needs to get the earlier bus/train.

Actually, legally you can't ask someone to be in early just so they are perceived 'at their desk' at a certain time. If getting ready for work requires something that takes time to do, i.e dress appropriately and she is in the building at 8, then you can't ask her to come in earlier unless you're prepared to pay her for that time.

Tbh I completely agree with you. It's not affecting her ability to carry out her job so leave it. The person who is getting their knickers in a twist needs to recognise you have a different management style and they should zip it.

Separate to the issue of being a few minutes late or not, it's always the martyrs that feel hard done by isnt it.

"Oh but I come in 45 minutes early and leave 10 minutes late every day while that person comes in 2 minutes late so it takes the mick". Well actually, no one is asking you to come in early or stay late, and you're not doing it because you have a lot of work, you just do it so you can have a reason to moan about other people and to try and act like you go above and beyond.

Just to clarify, I'm not the person coming in late or the person needlessly coming in really early, but I am the person who said early person moans to EVERY DAY about the person who comes in 2 mins late grr

It gets on my bloody wick tbh.

I agree with all those saying to ask her in to your office for a quiet word. Include all the stuff about how pleased you are with her work in general, but that you notice she is a few minute minutes late for starting work EVERY SINGLE DAY - emphasies it. Then ask if the is a reason for it. So, if she comes in on a bus that only runs once an hour that arrives at that time, say it is fine, but that it would do her well if she can think of a way of making up the 20mins a week she is working under contract. If thre isn't a reason, then ask her if she can sort it out.
All this depends so much on the culture and the role. In my team we have no problem with people starting work at diffent times as we arrange our own diaries and thre is no impact on anyone else, along with the fact everyone works loads of free overtime too, but if - as implied- this is a youngster at the start of her working life, she might not realise that these things can annoy colleagues and can affect your performance management in the same way that other things that seem tiny to other folk, really rile some peple, and those things can affect them in their careers.

@Treacletoots even if your shift starts at that time? I need to be logged in to all systems and ready to answer the phone at 8am so I need to be in work 15 mins before

It'd really naf me off tbh. I had a colleague like this a few years ago and when I added up all the mins she was late here and there (tbf up to 30 mins sometimes) it worked out that she owed back a week! All those mins add up! Yes it was over the course of like 18 months but the point is late is late.

I'm often minutes late, I just work into my lunch break that time so I still leave in time. Are you sure she's not doing the same

@yesqueen

Thats my understanding yes. Years ago I used to work for a large corporate who tried to make everyone come in work early so they'd be at their desks exactly on time.

Until.. One person challenged it, and they backed straight down because they knew legally they couldn't ask someone to be in work if they weren't going to pay them for the hours.

The current culture at work is leaning ever more towards employers doing things because they think they can get away with it, because we actually have very few rights and people don't want to be seen as troublemakers.

I personally think it's a managers job to get the best out of their team, not to make sure they are at their post at exactly x time every day. That school of management doesn't get the best out of people.