Tardiness a Problem for American Businesses Overseas

As a manager, how do you combat the never ending problem of employees who are late? There seem to be handfuls of employees who are continuously late, all of the time, no matter the day, time, reason, or season. As businesses become global, they find that the problem of tardiness exists in other cultures.

However, in some countries, tardiness is socially acceptable and unless a business addresses the cultural differences, employees will not change their ways, according to a recent press release. Many businesses within the U.S. have adopted official rules and regulations so that all of their mangers deal with tardy employees.

These same policies and business practices will not prove to be effective in other countries, said economists at the University of Arkansas.

Prior to opening operations in a location, businesses need to realize that being late or tardy is socially and culturally accepted in many low-income and Latino-American countries. Tardiness does have a financial cost in lost productivity, yet like other forms of inefficiency, it is difficult to measure.

Many times people in other countries choose to be late - for classes, meetings, work, and other appointments - because everyone is 'expected' to be late. There is no social stigma associated with lateness.

Economists have researched several different ways of dealing with employee tardiness, including monetary methods and social methods.

The monetary methods of addressing tardiness included fines for being late, assessing penalties for being late, giving rewards to those who are not late, all trying to make a change. None of these proved successful over the long run.

Only the social method appears to be useful for changing an employee's outlook regarding the importance of being on time for work and their appointments. When employees were barred from attending meetings if they were late, or when newspapers published the names of those individuals who were late for meetings, the idea of being late became less popular, less socially appealing, and began to diminish.

Using social sanctions is the best route for a business to take when it has overseas locations that are impacted by tardiness.

"The high-profile campaigns in Peru and Ecuador - where some estimates of losses due to tardiness are as high as 4 percent of gross domestic product - are based on moral suasion and not fines or monetary penalties. Our analysis shows that prospects of success for these campaigns are dim. The findings suggest that only precisely constructed monetary penalties would likely be effective," said Andrew Horowitz, economics professor in the Sam M. Walton College of Business.

Source:
http://www.newswise.com/p/articles/view/535625/