Employee management is a very challenging part of running a business. Large companies can hire specialists to take care of this part of their business, but small to medium-scale business owners usually handle this personally. This can be a difficult part of your job if you aren’t a person with strong people management abilities. A lot of entrepreneurs are extremely talented professionals but not necessarily great managers. With employee management, absenteeism is a prominent problem that a number of businesses have to face. To some extent, this can even be considered a universal problem.
Businesses in every industry face absenteeism-related problems. Different businesses have different ways of dealing with it, but one technique that is quite effective is the point system. This is an effective strategy no matter how many employees you are trying to tackle, whether they are remote or in-house teams, and where in the world your business is located. Here is what you need to know about the point system.
What Is A Point System
It is an attendance strategy for getting employees to show up on time and work the number of hours that they are legally required to work. Cumulatively, the minutes that employees show up late for work, leave early, or miss work entirely can have a big impact on the business. Even though businesses don’t pay for these minutes and employees that don’t work, the fact that they aren’t there to perform their job has a negative impact on the business. It causes a problem in the overall workflow and places an unnecessary workload on other workers who have to pick up the slack.
This system is primarily designed to punish those who are late and unprofessional about their working hours while rewarding those that do take timing seriously. It consists of different rewards for those who work well and consequences for those that don’t. In extreme cases, when the employee has reached the maximum number of points, they are usually let go of the position.
The way that this system is implemented varies from business to business. Some have less leniency, while others are more flexible. Some have more stages, while others don’t tolerate poor timing very much. This is a legal HR practice that many businesses can, and do, implement.
How It Works
If an employee doesn’t show up for work, if they leave early, if they arrive late, or are unable to put in the required hours of work, they get a certain amount of points for each situation. The way companies award points and the number of points that are given for each situation do vary.
Essentially, the point system is all about giving employees ‘points’ for every time they are late, absent, or generally not respecting their working hours. Different actions can be associated with a different number of points. For instance, being 5 minutes late might only cost a person ½ a point while missing a day of work without informing a manager could cost 5 points.
When a person accumulates a certain number of points they are given some kind of consequence. For instance, if a person gets two points, they might be given a verbal warning from a senior. At the very extreme stage, an employee may be discharged if they have gotten too many points.
Point System Categories
Within this attendance policy, there are a few different categories according to which employees are given points. Generally, there are 5 categories, but this can vary depending on the employer.
1. Â Tardiness
Tardiness is a very subjective matter. In some companies, you are expected to be 10 minutes early to work so that you are actually working when your shift starts. In such situations, being even a minute late to work is considered quite late since it will still take you another ten minutes to actually start your work. In other companies even being 15 minutes late is acceptable and won’t get you too many points. Also, interns and people who are still in the evaluation period can be subject to a points system that has stricter rules. Tardiness is a gray area because it isn’t defined by any other category as being late but you still get points for it.
Again, if you are late because of severe weather conditions, then what would be considered tardy on a regular day may not be considered tardy on this particular day. However, getting enough tardiness points could still earn an employee a warning or any other relevant consequence.
2. Â Arriving Late
This is usually defined as being at least 15 minutes late. If the shift starts at 9 am, employees are expected to be on-site by 9.15 am. Anything beyond that is clearly part of having arrived late to work. This will get you certain points and be added to your record.
3. Â Leaving Early
It is common for some employers to show some leniency in leaving early. Generally, leaving 10-20 minutes before the shift actually ends is not a problem, but leaving an hour early will be considered an early leave.
4. Â Informed Absence
This is when you let the employer know the day before that you will not be able to make it to work and that this is not part of your available days off. Even though you are letting the employer know, it will still get you some points because this is not time off in vacation, sick days, emergencies, or any other category within which you can take a day off. Generally, companies have some rules as to how early a person needs to inform management that they will not show up, they need to have a valid excuse, and there is a defined consequence for this situation.
5. Â No call No show
This is usually the most expensive kind of time off that you can take. You don’t call and let the employer know, and you don’t show up to work at all that day. Again, this is only considered a no-call no-show when this happens randomly and is not due to some emergency. In some companies, this can even be the means of instant termination.
For each of these categories or any others that a business has, there will be specifications on how these different things apply and what employees need to do if they want to take time off according to a certain category. However, this is the bare structure that most companies base their point system attendance policies on.
Exemptions
Companies are required by law to have exemptions for certain employees in certain circumstances. For instance, if someone is a military reserve professional and they are called in for duty, the time they take off from work will not be counted towards their attendance points. Similarly, if a person has a medical emergency, or if a female employee has to deal with her pregnancy, they usually have immunity from the point system in these cases.
Similarly, individuals with certain disabilities or those that need to attend to legal matters during their working hours will also have immunity. Companies can also have their own way of categorizing exempted individuals, but these are some common exemptions that companies are expected to adhere to by law.
Point System
The exact number of points that are awarded for each situation varies from policy to policy.
Generally, being tardy, arriving, or leaving late within 19 minutes of the job timing earns an employee half a point.
Leaving or arriving early gets 1 point. In most companies, this is when the person is up to 2 hours late or leaves 2 hours early.
Informed absence usually refers to when an employee takes a full day off, having informed the appropriate person in management within the appropriate time period. However, in some companies taking half the day or more off can result in an informed absence. This earns 2 points.
Full absence is generally applied when there is a no-call, and no-show situation or the employee is more than 3 hours late with no prior notice. This is given 5 points, or whatever the maximum numbers of points are in that policy.
For some companies, the maximum number of points you can get is 20. For others, it can be 30. It all depends on what the exact policy is. At different stages, there are usually different consequences. In most cases, there are 3 levels:
- Â Verbal warning
- Â Written warning and some kind of fine or penalty
- Â Termination
Some businesses also reset the point count every year. Others might reset the count every 6 months or even every quarter. Also, some businesses have different attendance policies for different employees in the team because of the nature of their work. For people that are carrying out extremely important operations where finding a replacement is difficult or impossible, the framework is usually much tighter. Businesses that are extremely time-sensitive also tend to have stricter rules for timing.
Tips For Point System
At the end of the day, the purpose of the system is to help the business operate more efficiently by lowering fluctuations in employee timing. Just having the timing policy alone is not enough unless the policy is properly implemented and the business also addresses other issues that are impacting employee timing. There are a few things that businesses can do to improve the impact of this policy.
Communication
If an employee is running late on a regular basis or leaving early nearly every day, it is the management’s duty to have a discussion and find out what the problem is. Simply handing employees points for their actions can demoralize them and alienate them from the company. Giving them space to talk about their problems and explain why they are acting this way can help gain their trust and improve their performance. If the individual doesn’t want to discuss the issue, that’s fine, but at least management will have done what they can to help the employee improve their condition before they award them points for their attendance.
Rewards
On the other end of the spectrum are going to be employees who show up early, put in extra time at work, and go above and beyond what their job requires. These are people that the company needs to award them publicly. It is not about the size of the reward but about the fact that good behavior is noticed and appreciated. Things like a gift card, shopping voucher, a day off from work, or even a small cash bonus can go a long way.
Management
The management that implements these policies also plays a big role. Making sure that your managers know how to implement these policies is critical. They should know how to log time properly, how to identify issues, how to report problems to seniors, and how and when they should take disciplinary action. They should also be trained to handle situations with empathy and compassion. Their job is not just to put the policy to work but to get employees to work the necessary amount of hours. This can also include training managers to develop their interpersonal skills.
Framework
The policy itself needs to be clearly laid out. Employees should know exactly what is expected from them and what the repercussions will be for any given circumstance. Moreover, they should know how they can save themselves from these things, and they should be familiar with the protocols that they need to adhere to. Also, make sure that the policy is being implemented for everyone equally.
Even when employees have a no-call no-show situation, management should still follow up with the employee when he or she returns. Discuss the issue with them and try to find out what is happening and how it can be resolved. If the management is having problems in implementing the policy, then work with them on that to improve their performance in this regard. It’s possible that employee absenteeism is being triggered by some other factors that are outside of the business and might even be outside of the control of the company. In such situations, exemptions need to be made. The policy is there as a general rule for employees not to make their life harder or to penalize an individual. Taking a holistic approach to managing absenteeism will be the best strategy for a business.
