WHAT MAKES PEOPLE LATE FOR WORK – AND WHY IT MATTERS

Late arrival for work is costly for the economy. Yet until now, there has been scant evidence on exactly what makes people late for work. New research from the University of Manchester, presented at the Royal Economic Society’s Annual Conference this week, offers some answers. The report by Ken Clark, Simon Peters and Mark Tomlinson uses information from a representative cross-section of the British workforce to reveal that:

· A happy worker is a punctual worker. Workers who are very satisfied with their jobs are half as likely to be late in any month as those who are neutral about their job.

· Overall, 70% of workers claim to always be on time to work and such workers tend to be older and married.

· Younger and single workers are more likely to be late at least once a month.

· Parents, especially of pre-school children, find it hard to juggle managing the kids along with arriving at work on time.

· Workers do pay attention to their employer’s policies on lateness, both ‘carrots’ and ‘sticks’. Strict penalties for lateness such as instant dismissal lead to better behaved workers but such harsh personnel policies apply to only a small proportion of the workforce (less than 10%).

· Similarly, incentive pay schemes – bonuses and the like – lead to greater punctuality but the magnitude of this effect is quite small.

The researchers calculated the average number of days late per month depending on how satisfied the workers were relative to some baseline, the strictness of lateness policy in their workplace (sticks) and the existence of incentive payments (carrots).

A typical 35-year-old is late around once a month, rising to between three and four times a month if their employer has a very lax policy on lateness (no sticks). The same typical worker will be late only once every second month if their job satisfaction is high.

Why does this matter? Lateness is costly to the economy; late workers are not contributing to output and also impose costs on other employees who depend on them or who have to provide cover. This is especially important in ‘just-in-time’ production systems.

Lateness can also be correlated with other forms of worker misbehaviour including absenteeism and can raise employer turnover costs if late workers become sufficiently dissatisfied that they leave the firm or are fired.

While it is glib to suggest that all employers need to do to maintain punctuality is to keep their workers happy, persistent lateness can be a symptom of deeper problems that will be even costlier to the firm in the long run.