Employee Is Always Late But Great at Their Job: How Do I Handle It?
Every manager, at some point in their career, has dealt with this person. They produce excellent work. Their output is strong. Their clients love them. But they consistently roll in 20, 30, 45 minutes after they are supposed to. And you have been letting it slide because the work is good.
This is one of the most common management mistakes in small businesses, and it is worth addressing directly: looking the other way because someone performs well is not a reasonable exception. It actually compounds the problem over time.
Why Selective Enforcement Is a Legal Risk
When you allow one employee to routinely violate an attendance policy that other employees are held to, you create an inconsistency that looks, and may actually be, discriminatory. If the chronically late employee who gets a pass is in a different demographic group than the employees who get disciplined for the same behavior, you have exposed yourself to a discrimination claim.
You do not need to have discriminatory intent for a discrimination claim to have merit. You need only have applied your policy differently to employees in different protected classes. Inconsistent enforcement of attendance standards is one of the most common bases for discrimination complaints. For more on how attendance patterns should be addressed before they become a larger problem, see Employee Called In Sick on a Holiday: What Do I Do?.
It Affects the Rest of Your Team
Other employees notice. When a chronically late colleague is visibly not held to the same standard as everyone else, it communicates several things: the rules are not real, performance is the only thing that matters regardless of conduct, and management plays favorites. None of these messages positively serve your culture.
High performers in your organization who do show up on time are watching how you handle the ones who don’t. If the message they receive is that results excuse anything, you will either start seeing others test the limits or start losing the people who hold themselves to a higher standard.
The Right Way to Address It
The fact that someone is a high performer does not make the conversation harder, it actually makes it simpler. You are not having a performance conversation. You are having a conduct conversation. Separate them clearly.
Step 1: Have a direct conversation
Meet with the employee privately. Acknowledge their contributions explicitly and genuinely. Then be direct: “I want to address something separately from your performance, which is strong. You’ve been consistently arriving [X minutes] after your scheduled start time for [time period]. That’s a problem I need to address regardless of your output.”
Step 2: Listen to the explanation
Ask whether there is something going on that is contributing to the late arrivals. There may be a transportation issue, a childcare situation, a medical condition, or something else that has a reasonable solution, including a schedule adjustment that makes the issue moot. If the explanation involves a medical condition or a protected characteristic, tread carefully and consult HR before proceeding.
Step 3: Offer a solution or set a clear expectation
If there is a flexible arrangement that would resolve the issue without affecting the business, consider it. Starting at 9:00am instead of 8:30am and staying later is a reasonable accommodation for someone who is otherwise performing well. If flexibility is not possible, be clear about what the expectation is and what the consequence of continued lateness will be.
Step 4: Document and follow through
Whatever you discuss, document it. If the employee agrees to a schedule change, document the new schedule. If you have set an expectation for improvement, document that expectation and the timeline. Follow through consistently. If it happens again after the conversation, address it again, in writing. For guidance on how that escalation process should work, see How to Write a Progressive Discipline Policy.
What Not to Do
• Do not continue to ignore it because the work is good. You are building a precedent and a legal risk.
• Do not make an informal, verbal-only exception that is not documented anywhere
• Do not use performance as the basis for allowing the attendance exception without documenting a formal arrangement
• Do not raise the attendance issue publicly or in a way that embarrasses the employee
The Bottom Line
Good performance and good conduct are both expectations. They are not in competition. A well-run organization holds people accountable for both, and the best managers find ways to address conduct issues without damaging strong performance relationships. A direct, respectful conversation, documented and followed through, is almost always the right move.
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