How to Get Your Employees to Show Up on Time

When your team is motivated, they will naturally want to show up on time. That’s why showing up on time starts with motivating your team.

I spend a lot of time in coaching sessions discussing how to get employees to show up on time. Many workplaces are in transition from more remote work to more in-person work. As a result, many employees are struggling to adapt.

Being On Time Is About Engagement

Let’s be honest. The only way employees show up on time is if they want to show up on time.  So, the question is, can we measure how much they want to show up? Actually, yes, we can. Engagement is the measure of how enthusiastic someone is about their work. When you measure engagement, you know a lot about their desire to show up on time.

The premiere research firm on engagement is Gallup, who studies it extensively. They regularly conduct large scale studies in order to track and analyze changes in engagement. After a long stretch of steadily rising engagement between 2009 and 2021, Gallup now finds the number of engaged workers since 2021 hovering in a narrow range between 30% and 32%.

Because just one percent of workers can represent millions of workers, small changes represent a lot of workplace effort collectively. This in turn affects millions of employers’ profitability.

Engagement vs. Motivation

Engagement and motivation are related but not exactly the same. Motivation describes how workers think about their work. This is why trust, respect, and self-esteem at the office are so important. On the other hand, engagement describes behaviors that follow when workers have certain thoughts and attitudes. To put it another way, motivation is an internal state of mind. In contrast, engagement is a set of behaviors and beliefs that we can measure.

So, in order to change external behavior, you have to start with internal states of mind. For example, employees who think, “I’m excited to get to work,” are more likely to show up on time. Bascially, engagement starts with motivation.

Remote Work Dilemma

Gallup has recently put out a few studies that shed a lot of light on how employees think about work, and particularly, where they work from. According to the research, workers who work from home more are more productive. Before the pandemic, this is something that would have been hard to believe. In fact, many workplaces pre-pandemic defined productivity as hours in the office, or as some liked to call it, butts in seats.

However, after the pandemic, individuals and workplaces have noticed that many people get a lot more done when they don’t come into the office. This often has to do with reducing commuting time to zero. Sometimes it also has to with the kind of flex time people at home can use. If their most productive time is in the very early morning hours, they can get up and start working as early as they want. If they are more of a night owl, they can sit down and work when things are quiet late at night. When workers can choose times that minimize distractions and create their ideal working conditions, it’s no wonder that productivity goes up.

At the same time, working from home has demonstrated downsides too. Studies have shown that workers who work exclusively from home have more negative emotions and are less likely to be thriving in their lives. Interestingly, those who work from home all the time report feeling more stress, more anger, more sadness, and more loneliness than people who have hybrid or in-person work arrangements. As it turns out, the social aspect of an office culture has real well-being benefits.

So, to really get workers to want to show up on time, you have to work on motivation and foster a team spirit, both of which make showing up more attractive.

Three Ways to Get Your Employees to Show Up on Time

Here are three proven ways to improve engagement and improve how employees show up on time.

1. Motivate your team by building a workplace culture that demonstrates respect, builds self-esteem, and cares about individuals on the team. Read more about how to do this in my article: How to Motivate Your Team.
2. Develop a careful hybrid work strategy when possible. As with all work/life issues, the key is balance. Although the details differ for every workplace, it’s important to find the right balance for your workforce. For example, consider what is the right amount of time for remote work, where there are ideal conditions, flexible hours, and fewer distractions? At the same time, what is the ideal amount of in-person work, where there is more of an interpersonal connection, more mentoring and friendship, and social benefits? See more on this topic from Gallup.
3. Measure engagement. The only way to know if you are engaging your team or your workplace is to measure it. Gallup’s Q12 offers 12 questions that measure employee engagement. It’s easy and cost effective for both small teams and at scale. Also, because the Q12 focuses on behaviors that managers can change, it is a guide to managers for the behaviors that will improve both motivation and engagement. By holding yourself as a manager accountable for the behaviors specified in this assessment, you will be more likely to behave in ways that have proven to be effective in motivating your team.

So, to help your team show up on time, motivate them with respect, self-esteem and caring. When they feel the love, they will naturally want to show up on time.