How to deal with absent co-workers?

Question

I am a Marketing Professional who strives to be the best I can be. But for quite some time I have found myself losing focus because of the poor office habits of one employee. This employee is absent from work 8 weeks of the year (2 allowed) and when they are here they are coming in 1-2 hours late, taking 2 hour lunches and going home early every day—coming and going without notification. A typical day of this person consists of chatting with other employees and talking on the phone with friends. The habits of this individual make it difficult to work in a team-based environment. Not only does this affect the moral of the team, it affects productivity. This behavior is very discouraging for those of us working 60 hours a week with very heavy schedules. Everyone in the office makes jokes but it isn't a laughing matter. I wrote a letter to our HR executive 6 months ago and nothing has changed. Did I mention this person is a Manager?

Answer 1

Some Managers take advantage of their status as managers. I don't know if the manager is salary or not, but they are where I work and I know of a couple of them that take extreme advantage of not having to clock in and out. I too get frustrated with a coworker of mine; on the same level as me. But you know what, no matter where you go there will be someone else doing the same thing. So do your job to the best of ability and don't worry about what others are doing. It will pay off in the long run.

Good Luck!

Answer 2

I can understand your frustrasion. I work with people that come and go as they please. When the few that are late everyday come in at least 45 minutes late. Mangament does nothing I have to do everything in the morning until they get here so we don't get behind for the day. When they do get here th e first thing they do is talk on the phone, complain about everything and everyone. They talk about people in the office all day long. They have stupid dances that they do in their chairs. Talk and waste time all day. When 4:00pm comes along they struggle to do their work 4:00pm is our cut of time. Mangament does nothing to fix the problem. I have mentioned it and they refuse to do anything because no one else complaines. So they don't understand what I am talking about. I have been looking for a new job for a number of reasons this being one of them. All I can suggest is to keep contacting HR. Tell them that mangaers in the office don't want to address the situration. If they have enough complaints from enough people they hopefully will look into it. Don't do extra work so everything is completed for the day. If HR sees that the work is not being done then they will want to why. Everyone that laughs about it does not want to be the one complaing about it because this person is a manager , they are afairad they will lose their job. I don't know if I was any help I hope so.


If you want to talk you can contact me. I know how hard it is to be working with fools that get away with doing nothing and get all the praise. While you bust your *** and get nothing. Good luck to you ( sorry for any misspellings I was in a hurry)

Answer 3

The best thing you can do is introduce individual targets where by each individual will be required to have achieved certain target after let say 3 months. This way if one of the worker is not achieving, the matter will be easily noticed. I as a HR worker do like to do what is called follow up. I think you should write another letter through HR to the CEO of the company and attached the earlier letter you had written. This will get the attention of the people you want to.

Answer 4

Sorry to say, but if this employee is not under your direct supervision, there is little you can do. Be advised that you are not in a position to know the complete facts of the situation - perhaps the person is undergoing an aggressive medical treatment, like chemotherapy or such?

Don't worry about what other people do, you are not the judge of them. Try to look inside and find out why this situation makes you so angry that you are 'unable to concentrate.' Because in your question above, you just sound jealous and vindictive.

Answer 5

Is there not any performance review process by your upper management? I mean, there has to be a higher tier than this individual to refer to. I have learned there is always, always ONE person at every job that makes your job grit your teeth sometimes. There will always be that person who slacks off and makes you go home cursing. If their performance is directly, or even indirectly affecting YOUR performance, you have beef to back up your complaint to the higher-ups. I would try to confer with HR again. If they do nothing and it is really getting to you that much, try to find another place of employment.

Answer 6

People get what's coming to them, try to get some of your other co-workers involved if possible. See if they would write a letter to HR, or you and a few others go over him to somebody that would be in charge, to see if that will change things.

Some people are like that, my boss is very similar, but I have nobody above him to go to unfortunately. But I do talk to him at times, when he asks me to stay later to do things, and say "I can't I have other things to do, maybe you should come in and work on some things."

Answer 7

this sounds like a very negative aspect of your job, maybe you could get the other affected team members to write a joint letter or separate letters addressing the issue, i would get rid of the bad apple if it was up to me. no production = no profit = no sense in having this person around = waste of money and negative work environment for all employees = fire this person now!

Answer 8

I'm sorry. I know that can be a real headache. I know it is hard, but I say try not to focus your energy on it, especially since you have talked to HR. It might just be one of those things that sucks, but you can't do anything about.

I hope it works out for you though. Good luck!

Answer 9

Any reasons besides the obvious that he should stay? HR didn't do anything, maybe its time to dig deeper and see why. He might just be the spy sent by your boss. Hold your horses till you've confirmed that he has no "special" reasons why hes still there, then let all hell loose.