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Submitted by SteveAnderson on
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BLUF: How can I track employee attendance and timeliness when I don't work with them physically?

I remotely manage a team of directs who are colocated in one office. My manager and others have brought it to my attention that one of my directs has had spotty attendance in the office - coming in late, leaving early, that type of thing. Normally, I don't care so long as my team is delivering results on time and getting the work done. That's not the case with this employee. I'm presently documenting my feedback on other behaviors but I'm not quite sure how the approach this one.

I've considered setting up daily check-ins, monitoring his status on IM to see when he comes online, pulling physical access logs, things like that. All of them seem like babysitting to me and I know that when an employee feels that way, they usually don't give their top performance.

Any and all suggestions are much appreciated.

Steve

Atypical IT Guy's picture

I would just give feedback for now and see how things improve.  You are right taking steps to activly monitor his time seems like babysitting at this point.  If you let him know that you are aware of his lateness (by giving feedback) that will likely solve the issue.  If you keep getting reports I would give several more pieces of feedback before moving on to any different action.

 

On a side note, given that your manager approached you with this I would communicate with him/her on your plan.  They will likely keep a eye out and approach you again if the behaviour continues. 

angelicdoctor's picture

I was new to my team and it was reported to me early on that one of my seniors had tardiness and availability issues.  He ultimately winded up on a performance improvement plan despite multiple instances of feedback and within a few months afterwards, left the company.  It was a mutually agreed departure with no hard feelings and completely expected.