March 2, 2017
As the saying goes, time is money. Keeping one person waiting 5 minutes wastes their time and, more importantly, company time. Keeping 6 people waiting for 5 minutes wastes 30 minutes of company time. If you continue to make a habit of it, you may face the consequences of being late to work, like costing your company some serious dollars and doing damage to your reputation and career.
Although there may be a few instances where you have a genuinely good excuse, for the most part being habitually late reflects poorly on you.
Instead of:
your coworkers might think:
We know that's not the case, so if you don't want an undeserved poor reputation, don't be tempted to use a lame excuse like "traffic was horrible." Some excuses are so common—and so predictable—they no longer qualify as good excuses for being late to work. Most common problems with punctuality can be solved with a little planning and discipline.
Want to share a few hints with the habitually tardy in your workplace? Download our poster to learn what lame excuses to avoid and laugh at some of the most creative (and real) ones we've heard (and maybe even used ourselves).
July 14, 2016
Commuting would be soooooo much easier if we could just strap on a personal jetpack and fly right over all the traffic. It could combat that problem of chronic tardiness (although the downside would be helmet hair).
July 1, 2016
Tired of playing time cop? 13% of employees report being late to work at least once a week. Maybe it’s just a habitual offenders who are the problem, but chronic tardiness can be a drain on employee productivity and a company’s bottom line. While the unpredictable can happen (rescued a kitten, flushed your keys, smashed your finger), there are some late-for-work excuses that show up time after time.
It should be no surprise that rush hour traffic is the #1 excuse for being late. A 2015 survey of over 2,500 hiring and human resource managers conducted by on behalf of CareerBuilder found that traffic was blamed for 53% of the excuses.