How to *nicely* reprimand an employee...

[Anonymous]

Try the socratic method. Ask her to identify the problems, and then suggest workarounds. That way, you're not the one telling her off, you're helping her. If she's naturally hard on herself, she'll know there's an issue.

[Anonymous]

The responses are all rather fascinating to me. In my office (and most of the industry, frankly), the conversation would go something like this: "Susan. Please stop showing up late. The hours are 7:00 to 3:00, be on time."

It's not very touchy-feely here, largely because it is completely male dominated. I think that anytime you have more women, it creates a gentler environment. (And most of the men are former military, too.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Try the socratic method. Ask her to identify the problems, and then suggest workarounds. That way, you're not the one telling her off, you're helping her. If she's naturally hard on herself, she'll know there's an issue.

If she were naturally hard on herself, she wouldn't be slacking and taking advantage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The responses are all rather fascinating to me. In my office (and most of the industry, frankly), the conversation would go something like this: "Susan. Please stop showing up late. The hours are 7:00 to 3:00, be on time."

It's not very touchy-feely here, largely because it is completely male dominated. I think that anytime you have more women, it creates a gentler environment. (And most of the men are former military, too.)

There's something to be said for clear and to the point. Sme of these examples are trying so hard not to offend that the essential message is lost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She's coming in thirty minutes late? What is this, 1976? Why isn't your office on Flexiglide? Why can't she come in thirty minutes late and work an extra hour, or an extra thirty minutes? Why have this conversation at all? Why is it your business? Why are you up in your staff's personal life like they were four years old. Welcome to 2012.

Attorney manager.

I was wondering this exact same thing. 30 minutes shouldn't be a big deal if she gets her work done, works through lunch, stays later or whatever. She is, afterall, presumably a salaried employee. Being on time ALL OF THE TIME is difficult when you are a parent - it's just the truth. Maybe your office should adopt more flexible policies?

Are you kidding me? No it isn't! There are tons of jobs where you don't have flex time. Do you think physicians get to roll into their ER shifts whenever they feel like it? Hourly wage workers show up when the mood strikes them? What a bunch of entitled nitwits.

Get your act together and get to work on time.

I know, right? I'm a teacher-- that would be an interesting conversation with my boss. "Sorry the kids are unsupervised for the first 30 minutes of the day, but you know how it is-- being on time is so difficult when you're a parent!"

Gimme a break, folks. Sure, everyone has those days where there's an accident and the beltway is shut down, or whatever, and it's unavoidable that you're late. But those kind of days are exceptions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The responses are all rather fascinating to me. In my office (and most of the industry, frankly), the conversation would go something like this: "Susan. Please stop showing up late. The hours are 7:00 to 3:00, be on time."

It's not very touchy-feely here, largely because it is completely male dominated. I think that anytime you have more women, it creates a gentler environment. (And most of the men are former military, too.)

There's something to be said for clear and to the point. Sme of these examples are trying so hard not to offend that the essential message is lost.

I agree. I had a job where I was friends with my supervisor, made assumptions (that were wrong) about what was acceptable, got too comfortable, and then got laid off - and I never saw it coming. It would have been so much better if my boss had called me on the carpet as soon as she realized there was a problem so I could have changed things as well as talked to her about some barriers to completing projects that had arisen which I hadn't informed her about. I was young, it was my first real job, I didn't know I should have talked to her about this stuff. So it was devastating when I did get laid off. And the organization lost a valuable employee who could have adjusted her work performance and stayed on.

Anyway, all this is to say - don't be afraid to upset someone. Have the conversation and make sure it's clear. You're not doing her a favor by trying to soften your true feelings.

[Anonymous]

But this woman is an attorney. She should be capable of determining her work hours. She's not an emergency room physician. She's not a teacher. She's not making widgets. She's an attorney.

This is a person who Flexiglide was designed for. She comes in sometime between 7 and 9:30 a.m. She works eight hours. She leaves. And guess what? She's MORE productive. It's just that crazy, people. But it works. When you let people come in at 8 one day, 8:30 the next, 9:15 the next day, they are actually MORE efficient, not less efficient, because, ya know, it's their life. It's their work. They can go to the doctor in the morning, pick up their dry cleaning, whatever, they don't have to sweat these details. They are not 4th graders. They can deal with it. And you don't have to spend half your day on administrivia like who is thirty minutes late.

I've worked for two federal agencies. One had flexiglide, one didn't. The agency with flexiglide was about fifty times more efficient, and the managers had a lot more time to deal with WORK. Work, yeah, work. Not petty administrative bullshit like who is ten minutes late.

[Anonymous]

And one more thing.... this crap about "We should all be able to get to work on time, there are no excuses." Yeah, in a perfect world, that would be the case. But who the hell cares? Deal with reality.

[Anonymous]

is this person an attorney or admin staff? I was kind of assuming the latter from the OP...can't imagine why it would matter if an attorney showed up "on time" given that the work tends to be solitary rather than team oriented. The issue is whether the work is getting done. However, I can see why not having admin staff available could slow things down, although I do think it is nice to be flexible where possible. People have lives that get complicated sometimes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But this woman is an attorney. She should be capable of determining her work hours. She's not an emergency room physician. She's not a teacher. She's not making widgets. She's an attorney.

This is a person who Flexiglide was designed for. She comes in sometime between 7 and 9:30 a.m. She works eight hours. She leaves. And guess what? She's MORE productive. It's just that crazy, people. But it works. When you let people come in at 8 one day, 8:30 the next, 9:15 the next day, they are actually MORE efficient, not less efficient, because, ya know, it's their life. It's their work. They can go to the doctor in the morning, pick up their dry cleaning, whatever, they don't have to sweat these details. They are not 4th graders. They can deal with it. And you don't have to spend half your day on administrivia like who is thirty minutes late.

I've worked for two federal agencies. One had flexiglide, one didn't. The agency with flexiglide was about fifty times more efficient, and the managers had a lot more time to deal with WORK. Work, yeah, work. Not petty administrative bullshit like who is ten minutes late.

NP and i agree. there are plenty of jobs where a rigid start time isn't necessary. if the work gets done, the person stays late/cuts lunch, then what gives?

[Anonymous]

agree - weird that she HAS to be there at a specific time if she is an attorney. i am also a lawyer and we have the same flexi system. it works well and you should really try it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She's coming in thirty minutes late? What is this, 1976? Why isn't your office on Flexiglide? Why can't she come in thirty minutes late and work an extra hour, or an extra thirty minutes? Why have this conversation at all? Why is it your business? Why are you up in your staff's personal life like they were four years old. Welcome to 2012.

Attorney manager.

I was wondering this exact same thing. 30 minutes shouldn't be a big deal if she gets her work done, works through lunch, stays later or whatever. She is, afterall, presumably a salaried employee. Being on time ALL OF THE TIME is difficult when you are a parent - it's just the truth. Maybe your office should adopt more flexible policies?

While this would be great, there are those of us with totally inflexible bosses - whether it's due to company policies, being stuck in 1954, or just being a douche, they do exist. And we have to deal with them.

Signed,
Another person who is micromanaged about time but it's not entirely my boss' fault.

[Anonymous]

Sounds to me like the person isn't exactly working extra at the end of the day to make up for it.

[Anonymous]

Yes, it depends. We work with a lot of groups on the Left Coast who are at work at 6:30 am, or 9:30am here. We also have a lot of work that comes to us from their offices after business hours here that we had to review and handle in the morning and be ready to go when they get in. Time is money in a lot of instances. While, a 9am start time is nice, it's very hard to work with West Coasters if you get in after 9am. If she's regularly traipsing in at 9:30 or later, then that can delay smooth working at the start of the workday. While flexibility is nice, abuse or overuse of flexibility can be very difficult on a group or coworkers. It's really not up to us to define whether OP is right or not about setting work rules. Just answer the question of how to handle someone who abuses the rules.

[Anonymous]

Get someone else to tell her.