Before I get into the article, I should probably introduce myself and explain what this column is supposed to be.
My name’s Sam. AJ and I have been friends since we were teenagers, and I’m the person who originally came up with the “Angry Jerk” nickname, so I suppose I bear some responsibility for what eventually became AJnet Magazine. Today, AJ and I co-own a New Jersey-based management consulting company with our business partner, Stephanie. I’ve spent more than 15 years in the consulting industry, including several years with one of the major MBB firms, and most of that time has been spent helping companies deal with the kinds of management problems that don’t always have a clean answer.
That’s what All Up In Your Business is going to focus on. I’ll be discussing real issues that clients have brought to us over the years, with names and identifying details removed or changed where necessary. Some of these situations will involve major business decisions, while others will be much smaller workplace problems that are still worth talking about because they come up all the time. Readers will also be able to send in their own management and workplace questions at [email protected], and I’ll occasionally use those as the basis for future columns.
For the first one, we have an employee who leaves work ten minutes early.
His normal schedule is 7:00 AM to 3:30 PM. He’s paid hourly, his time is recorded by the minute, and overtime is both permitted and encouraged. He’s also considered a good employee, so there’s no performance issue sitting in the background here.
What bothers the employer is that he regularly leaves at around 3:20 instead of staying until 3:30. The reason he does it is pretty straightforward: if he leaves at 3:30, his commute home takes about 45 minutes. Leaving ten minutes earlier puts him ahead of a traffic buildup and cuts the trip down to roughly half an hour.
There’s one other detail that changes the situation quite a bit. The employee usually arrives around 6:15, about 45 minutes before his scheduled shift begins, and starts working when he gets there.
Management still doesn’t like him leaving early.
Their concern is less about the ten minutes themselves and more about what allowing it means. If one employee can decide to come in early and leave early, then another employee may ask to do the same thing. Someone else might want to arrive late and stay late, and before long management worries that the posted schedule doesn’t mean very much because everyone is negotiating their own version of it.
I understand that concern. Managers have to think beyond the employee standing in front of them and consider how a decision will affect the rest of the workplace. Exceptions can create problems when employees don’t understand why one person has been given flexibility that somebody else hasn’t, and there are plenty of jobs where coverage at a particular time is genuinely important.
That’s why I wouldn’t tell the employer that the schedule is meaningless or that employees should simply work whatever hours they prefer. If somebody needs to be at a customer service desk until 3:30, for example, then leaving at 3:20 might create a legitimate operational problem. The same is true if another employee has to cover those ten minutes, if production suffers, or if the early departure interferes with a shift change.
But none of those things appear to be happening here.
So the question I’d ask the employer is: What problem are you actually trying to solve?
The employee is arriving 45 minutes early and working that time. His performance is good, overtime is acceptable, and because his hours are tracked by the minute, the company isn’t paying him for time when he isn’t there. As far as anyone can tell, his departure at 3:20 isn’t disrupting the operation.
At that point, the issue becomes almost entirely about adherence to the scheduled end time. There’s nothing inherently wrong with caring about that, but managers should still consider whether enforcing the rule is going to produce a better outcome than allowing a reasonable exception.
In this case, I don’t think it will.
The employee has already told management that if they insist he remain until 3:30, he will. He isn’t refusing the schedule or suggesting that the company has no right to set his hours. He’ll simply stop arriving at 6:15 and start working his scheduled 7:00 AM to 3:30 PM shift instead.
That’s a perfectly reasonable response on his part.
From the employer’s perspective, enforcing the schedule restores consistency. From the employee’s perspective, however, management has made it clear that the extra time he voluntarily contributes in the morning doesn’t earn him any flexibility at the end of the day. Once you look at it that way, there isn’t much reason for him to continue providing that extra time.
This is where a manager has to think about more than whether they can enforce a rule. They also have to consider what behavior they’re encouraging.
Most companies benefit from employees who are willing to give a little extra when circumstances require it. That might mean coming in early, staying a few minutes later to finish something, helping a coworker, or handling a problem that technically could have waited until tomorrow. Those little things are difficult to put on a spreadsheet, but managers notice very quickly when employees stop doing them.
Flexibility tends to work the same way. When employees believe management will use reasonable judgment, they’re usually more willing to be reasonable themselves. If management treats every rule as absolute even when there’s no practical benefit to doing so, employees often respond by becoming equally literal about what the company is entitled to expect from them.
I’ve seen that happen in different forms over the years. Usually, the employee doesn’t suddenly become a poor performer or openly challenge management. They simply become less inclined to volunteer anything beyond the requirements of the job, which is often a completely rational response to the environment management has created.
That doesn’t mean employees should receive special treatment simply because they occasionally do something extra. A manager still has to look at performance, operational needs, fairness, and whether an arrangement is sustainable. The important part is recognizing that management decisions have consequences beyond the immediate behavior being corrected.
There’s also the commute itself.
Longer commutes have been associated in research with higher levels of stress and fatigue, along with poorer mental well-being in some populations. I wouldn’t suggest that every 45-minute commute is automatically harmful, but it’s reasonable to recognize that spending an extra 15 minutes in traffic every afternoon has a cost for the employee, even if that cost doesn’t affect payroll.
I can relate to that part personally. I spent years commuting from Northeast Philadelphia into Center City, and the difference between leaving at one time and leaving ten or fifteen minutes later could be surprisingly large. A relatively normal trip could turn into a long stretch of stop-and-go traffic very quickly, and after enough years of doing it, you become very aware of how much of your life can disappear into a commute.
That’s why I think the employee’s request deserves some consideration. He isn’t asking to work fewer hours, and he isn’t asking the company to absorb a significant inconvenience on his behalf. He’s asking for ten minutes at the end of the day in exchange for a schedule that already has him at work well before everyone expects him to be there.
If I were advising this employer directly, I’d recommend approving the arrangement with clear conditions.
The employee can leave at 3:20 as long as he continues arriving early, maintains satisfactory performance, and his departure doesn’t create a coverage or operational problem. I’d also make it clear that the arrangement can be revisited if the needs of the business change.
That gives management a much better answer to the precedent concern than simply refusing the request. If another employee asks for similar flexibility, management can consider that request on its own merits. Maybe it works for that employee too, or maybe their position requires them to remain until the end of the scheduled shift.
Managers are allowed to make distinctions when there are legitimate reasons for them. The important thing is being able to explain those distinctions consistently and without favoritism.
Some workplace rules genuinely need strict enforcement. Safety procedures, legal requirements, financial controls, and other rules where inconsistency can create serious consequences are obvious examples. Work schedules can also fall into that category when coverage or operations depend on them.
This particular situation doesn’t appear to be one of those cases.
The employer’s concern about maintaining discipline is understandable, but discipline shouldn’t become an end in itself. If the employee is productive, works more than his scheduled hours, and can leave ten minutes early without causing a problem for anyone else, I’d rather preserve a good working relationship than insist on those ten minutes simply because the schedule says 3:30.
Good managers still enforce rules. They just know when a little flexibility produces a better result.
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This story sounds awful familiar…