An In-Depth Analysis of Late Coming at Work: Causes and Solutions

This research report investigates the causes and effects of late coming at work in South Africa, addressing the issue's impact on business institutions and employee productivity. The study examines punctuality as a critical aspect of success, highlighting how lateness can disrupt workflow, disrespect colleagues, and lead to financial losses. The literature review covers economic and psychological perspectives on lateness, considering factors like employee commitment, job satisfaction, compensation structures, and withdrawal behaviors. The research methodology involves qualitative data collection through literature review, observations, employee attendance records, and interviews with employees and business owners. The hypothesis proposes that organizational commitment, rewards, income, illness, family conflicts, and job satisfaction influence lateness. The dependent variable is the frequency of employee lateness, while independent variables include employee behaviors, workplace conditions, monitoring, and incentives. The research aims to provide insights and strategies for organizations to address and mitigate the problem of late coming among employees.

Running head: LATE COMING AT WORK 1
Late coming at work
Student’s name
Professor’s name
Institutional Affiliation
Date

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Table of content
Table of content..........................................................................................................................................2
Late coming at work....................................................................................................................................3
Introduction.............................................................................................................................................3
Statement of the problem.......................................................................................................................3
Objective.................................................................................................................................................4
Literature Review....................................................................................................................................4
Hypothesis...............................................................................................................................................7
The dependent variables.........................................................................................................................7
Independent variables.............................................................................................................................7
Method....................................................................................................................................................8
The participants...................................................................................................................................8
Materials..............................................................................................................................................8
Procedure............................................................................................................................................8
The results...............................................................................................................................................9
conclusion................................................................................................................................................9
References.................................................................................................................................................11

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Late coming at work
Introduction
The key topic for research proposal is the ‘late coming at work.' Arriving late at work is one of
the critical issues that has plagued several institutions in South Africa. The act has contributed
significantly to the poor achievement and functioning of business institutions (Demeter &
Matyusz,2011). Hence, this topic will assist in investigating various causes of late coming to
work among different employees. The motive for this study is guided by the fact that every
business organisation is designed to bring workers with various skills together to achieve a
common goal.
Statement of the problem
One of the critical aspects of every success is the practice of punctuality. Effectiveness and
efficiency in serving the clients at the place of work can never be achieved without the coming
together of all employees. Lateness at work is one of the functions of time and such moments can
be used in the procedure of deciding lateness. Coming at work late disregards punctuality as a
principle of time and if not monitored can turn to be a bad habit with the employees involved. A
worker who strolls in the working place when other employees have started working shows
disrespect for both management and his or her colleagues. Secondly, if that particular worker
needed to be available for a specific project or a process to start, every individual remains
stranded. The consequence of such an act means worker's delay will slow the process or plan for
every individual. The lateness issue needs proper examination since in most cases, it could be
financially devastating for the given business organisation. According to (Challand.,2011)
various reports have shown many institutions in South Africa especially schools are reluctant to
time management. One of the stories indicated teachers were seen arriving late at schools which
had a negative influence on many teachers who could even report at school 9:00 am.

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Objective
Therefore, the main aim of this research project is to study various reasons for coming late at
work among employees in South Africa.
Literature Review
The productivity of employees depends on their commitment to work. Lack of determination will
drive the behaviour of the employees in ways that could negatively impact the output and the
profitability of the company. Recent studies have claimed the absenteeism, and late coming at
work has a high intensity on a given job at a particular hour (Gneezy, Meier & Rey-Biel.,2011).
The part of the commitment that has been neglected for a relatively long time is the issue of
punctuality, yet the management is aware that lateness at work has a significant loss to the final
product of the company. Just like policies have been devised to curve down the rate of
absenteeism its as well crucial to design systems which will positively impact the worker's
lateness.
Lack of punctuality in the workplace is very high, and many companies have not realised its
impact. For some organisation, being punctual is not easier to meet every day. One of the effects
linked to lack of punctuality is creating difficulties when the managers are developing the
payment schedules. The challenge in payment schedule is due to the expectation that workers
will not only report to work but reporting on time as well. Therefore, the issue of punctuality and
keeping time is a skill that every business organisation should embrace. A good time tracking
process will ensure the management exact cost of the resources during the time shift of the
employees. Tracking of the information provides a way of dedicating their commitment to the
expectations of the company (Lian, Ferris & Brown.,2012).

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Concerning (Manyika, Chui, Bughin, Dobbs, Bisson & Marrs, 2013) employees' detention can
be viewed in two broad perspectives within the psychological and economic field. The economic
perspective focuses on the constraints and the preferences by the workers with the capability of
reasoning. In economics, getting to work can be sometimes be viewed as choices made by
comparing the facts on the benefits and the cost of using the time available. Contrary, the
management researchers within the field of psychology will focus on the attitude of the workers
towards the organisation especially those with the perspective of job satisfaction. One of the key
areas in this research is the employees' multivariate regression assessment in evaluating the
empirical significance of these techniques. According to Van, Coe & Skira (2013) argues that a
good reasoning employee will choose to travel within the schedule to get at work on time. Lack
of Lateness at work imposes high profit and plays a crucial role in utility reduction. The gain can
be less in cases where the employees value leisure more than work. Two types of cost can be
incurred due to coming to work late. One of these costs would be a decrease in earnings if the
payment or profit made depend on the arrival time. The second cost is shrinking of the work
efficiency which can be measured through the benefits.
Several aspects impact the arrival hours of the employees at work. These aspects can be
classified into three broad categories. The first aspect is the preference of work by the
employees. The work preference can best be illustrated through workers who prefer leisure to
work. The second aspect is the structure of compensation which is a big issue among the many
workers in South Africa hence impacts negatively the schedule of their time. In the instance
where the efforts are rewarded, there is a big possibility of high performance and commitment.
Lastly, there is the issue of tenure and the security of the job. These two aspects will have a high

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probability of detecting the impact associated with lateness which can impact positively or
negatively the behaviours of the employees (Winter, 2011).
The psychological approaches of coming at work late concentrate on the part of withdrawal.
Researchers on this field claim that arriving at work late can be described as the withdrawal act
in which an individual manifest the disrespect and neglect the work of his or her employer. Other
behaviours of withdrawals can be seen in instances like absenteeism, shirking and voluntary
separations (Clapperton, 2010). The leading cause of resignation from work is job's satisfaction;
hence the employees show their withdrawal through lateness is those dissatisfied with the nature
of the situation concerning psychological approaches. Several types of research carried out on
psychological procedures have shown a significant correlation when the aspect of attitude and
lateness are compared.
One of the methods of preventing lateness at work is to establish ground rules and regulations.
This is important for every task to comprehend what is expected of him or her. The managers can
achieve this by communicating and creating a policy that will govern the lateness at work.
Lateness policy can include the following; The implications of coming at work late, the
expectation by the workers for lateness, methods of tracking lateness, a protocol of addressing
the lateness to the management, strategies on how employees can recover the lost time and an
outline of disciplinary actions. Organisational management should as well be aware of the
lateness policy to work it might be used responsibly. Individual workers should never be
targeted, and managers must be consistency in policy application (Aseye.,2014).
Secondly, the management should have correct documentation of rules and regulation that can be
used for disciplinary. In cases where a worker comes to work late, the arrival time can be
recorded. The training can be conducted to equip the supervisors with skills to documentation,

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disciplining, and counselling employees who come to work late. Although there is some lateness
known as chronic and such can be handled informally. When the specified pattern of tardiness
has been pointed, it is the role of the supervising managers to remind the workers why they
should avoid lateness (Winter, 2011). An employee can as well be given a privilege of
explaining why he or she arrived late and provide some advice that will make him or her
improve. Managers are encouraged to approach the situation in a way that will help the worker in
coming up with a solution that will permanently resolve the lateness issue.
Lastly, recognising a standard group behaviour for example, if an employee is consistently
coming at work late. The management should consider training its workforce on the significant
effects of punctuality. Reinforcing the responsibilities of the supervisory team will help
significantly in keeping things clear (Huang & Tzeng.,2010). Then the leaders will be needed to
lead as good examples to send a message to portray punctuality as a good act. Hence the
managers and the supervisors should make sure they frequently arrive at work on time.
Hypothesis
The following reasons account for coming late at work in South Africa; the commitment of
organisation, rewards, income, illness, family conflicts and job satisfaction.
The dependent variables
The dependent variable in this research is the number of the times an employee came to work
late in the past month. These response frequencies will then be tabulated on the table for
analysis.
Independent variables
The independent variables will be constituted by explanatory variables like the behaviours of the
workers, conditions of the workplace, monitoring and the incentives.

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Method
The participants
The participants for this research will be both female and males from the subordinates to the
senior individuals within the selected institutions. The institutions that will be involved in the
study are the banks, hospital and schools in central cities of South Africa. The methods for
recruiting will include sampling at least two members a male and female from each department.
Then I will group them into three groups in which the first group will be constituted by female
employees and the second group comprised male employees. The third group will overwhelm the
senior individual within the selected institutions. The participants will be interviewed within
their standard settings. The views, insights and facts given during the interview will be used to
accomplish the objective of this research. The questions that will be asked during the interviews
shall focus on the reasons for coming late at work among the employees.
Materials
There will be about 20 reports and papers that will be reviewed on various aspects linked to
lateness act among the employees in business organisations. The reports must include different
aspects that impact lateness among the workers. A questionnaire and camera will as well be
needed to record the interviews (Harvey.,2012).
Procedure
The reports and the reports will be analysed by putting down the common aspect discussed by
various authors and conventional techniques used by the diverse organisation to combat the
behaviour. Then the papers and reports will be summarised and structured into different sections.
A qualitative method will be used in carrying this study. Information will be corrected via the
literature review, observations, assessing the employees' list of attendance, interviews with the

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employees and various business owners (Ye & Ling.,2013). The discussions to be conducted will
help in giving a basis and an image for lateness interpretation at work. It will be the duty of
interviewer to make sure that all the set of questions will be responded appropriately.
The first criterion will involve downloading the reports and papers linked to lateness at the
workplace using the google search option.
The next step will to go through those reports and finding out different aspects that cause
lateness at various firms. However, most of the research reports and papers will be online,
university, thesis and review reports linked to the act of coming at work late.
The results
The research reports, papers and the data from interviews will be descriptively analysed through
qualitative coding technique according to Jaddoud (2018). Three categories of qualitative coding
are axial, selective and open. Typical responses from the employees will be put together to form
the groups from the interview questions. The link between the groups of different consequences
and conditions of mixed reactions from the workers will as well be established. This grouping
will be useful in determining if there are vital factors that can be deduced from coming late at
work.
Implications
The information gathered from the research will be used in reducing the causes of lateness at
work in various institution in South Africa. However, there is a need for more investigation on
the impact experienced with small businesses when compared to large corporations.
conclusion
There is a need for the management to address the issue of lateness and that will save the
industry experiencing the setbacks or losing the clients. Various methods can be used in

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preventing lateness. Coming at work late is not necessary contributed by laziness or a way of
creating attention. Individuals who are always late might have established an act of arriving late.
Some employees may try their best to complete a task in a little time, and other is a result of
losing the track.

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References
Challand, B. (2011). Coming too late? The EU’s mixed approaches to transforming the Israeli–
Palestinian conflict through civil society. In The European Union, Civil Society and
Conflict (pp. 114-143). Routledge.
Clapperton, G. (2010). Football's coming to work, it's coming [workforce distraction].
Engineering & Technology, 5(8), 66-69.
Demeter, K., & Matyusz, Z. (2011). The impact of lean practices on inventory turnover.
International Journal of Production Economics, 133(1), 154-163.
Gneezy, U., Meier, S., & Rey-Biel, P. (2011). When and why incentives (don't) work to modify
behavior. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 25(4), 191-210.
Harvey, P. (2012). Freedom's coming: Religious culture and the shaping of the South from the
Civil War through the civil rights era. UNC Press Books.
Huang, C. Y., & Tzeng, G. H. (2010). Open R&D Strategies Based Innovation Competence
Expansions of a Late Coming SoC Design Service Firm. International Journal of
Information, 6(1), 1-23.
Jaddoud, H. (2018). The Role of Reflection in Predicting Stress Coping, Turnover, Absenteeism,
and Lateness: A Study of the Hospitality Industry.
Lian, H., Ferris, D. L., & Brown, D. J. (2012). Does taking the good with the bad make things
worse? How abusive supervision and leader–member exchange interact to impact need
satisfaction and organizational deviance. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
Processes, 117(1), 41-52.

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Manyika, J., Chui, M., Bughin, J., Dobbs, R., Bisson, P., & Marrs, A. (2013). Disruptive
technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, and the global economy (Vol.
180). San Francisco, CA: McKinsey Global Institute.
Van Houtven, C. H., Coe, N. B., & Skira, M. M. (2013). The effect of informal care on work and
wages. Journal of health economics, 32(1), 240-252.
Winter, P. (2011). Coming into the world, uniqueness, and the beautiful risk of education: An
interview with Gert Biesta. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 30(5), 537-542.
Ye, L., & Ling, T. (2013). Study on influencing factors of development of TCM nursing.
Chinese Nursing Research, 2013(17), 9.