New Late Policy

The next time you are stuck in traffic that you did not anticipate on your way to work and end up being a few minutes late consider the new Wal-Mart lateness policy. Wal-Mart employees, if they are going to be absent or late for work, no less than an hour before their shift starts, must call a central number. At that time they will receive a confirmation number and then they must call their manager and provide that confirmation number to the manager. If this is not done, or not done at least an hour prior to the shift begins, the employee will receive a demerit. After a certain number of demerits discipline including termination will result.

This is an egregious policy for even the most responsible of people. All parents know how likely it is that a child will not cooperate in getting ready in the morning and getting dropped off at the daycare resulting in being a few minutes late to the office. This cannot be anticipated an hour in advance. Also, anyone who commutes to the office knows that unexpected traffic can occur, causing some ont to sometimes up to an hour late, and despite appropriate due diligence a person can be late a number of times in any given time period due to the unexpected.

Now couple the ordinary difficulties of getting to work on time with the people who work at Wal-Mart. The low wages the Wal-Mart pays can result in people not owning a telephone because they cannot afford one. This prevents them from calling the required number an hour before work. Additionally, a number of people who work low wage jobs do not have reliable vehicles or take public transportation such as a bus to work. The car can unexpectedly break down and public transportation in many areas is far from being reliable. These kinds of problems are not known an hour prior to work. They are also confronted with childcare issues and the standard traffic congestion that we are all confronted with.

This policy appears to be a system designed to have employees live in fear of losing their jobs. It is nothing more than a strong arm tactic so that managers can laud something over the heads of already demoralized employees. Having employees live in fear of their continued employment is not conducive to having a productive workforce. It is when employees feel comfortable in their surroundings and feel that they are contributing to something good that they will have the incentive to work hard opposed to doing just enough to get by. Wal-Mart apparently does not seek to have such an environment.

Of course, the more animosity it shows toward its employees, the more likely it is that the employees will leave and less likely Wal-Mart will be successful in finding replacements. Word gets around about where is a good and bad place to work. The good employees will know they do not want to work in a place like Wal-Mart and the bad employees will be late often enough that they will be fired. That does not leave too many people to work at the store.

Employers need to start taking lessons from Wal-Mart as to what they should not do such as skimp on health benefits, continuously cut wages to benefit the bottomline and now force employees to live in fear of their jobs by instituting bad beauricratic policies that are bad on paper and bad in practice.