While overseas bosses may turn a blind eye to employees being late for work, SA's bosses are not quite as lenient.
Recent research by Mozy, online backup service for Windows and Mac users, found that almost three-quarters of employers in the US, UK, Germany, France and Ireland have no problem with employees arriving late for work. This, says Mozy, is based on the premise and assumption that staff members are working long before they physically arrive at work anyway - from their mobile devices.
The study suggests a “new 9 to 5” is emerging through the uptake of mobile technology, including smartphone applications and cloud services. Of the 1 000 bosses surveyed, 73% adopt a laissez-faire attitude to timekeeping and are supportive of a flexible workforce.
The average employer, reveals Mozy, will accept employees being up to half an hour late and let their staff members spend a quarter of the week working from home. US bosses are the most lenient, tolerating up to 37 minutes late coming from employees - while British bosses are the strictest of the lot, expecting workers to be at work within 24 minutes of the work day starting.
In the context of the study, Mozy GM Russ Stockdale says workers are leveraging mobile technology to build more flexibility for work/family balance. “Mobile technology is allowing flexible working patterns that are a win-win for workers and employers alike.”
Passing on potential
South African bosses, on the other hand, tend to adopt a more typical view of the nature of work, according to World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck.
Goldstuck says, in SA, especially in middle management circles, productivity is generally equated with “bums-on-seats”.
“So if they can't see you working, to them it means you're not working. It's ironic, because mobile technology is now completely pervasive in business, yet middle management in particular is oblivious to what it means for their companies' potential performance.”
He says in more developed countries, where communications infrastructure is better developed - but where traffic congestion results in longer commutes - it is becoming more and more of a no-brainer to allow staff to work remotely when it is appropriate. “That goes hand-in-hand with measuring performance and output in effective ways, rather than via the time-clock.”
South African bosses are not known for seeking out complications, says Goldstuck, “and the time-clock is the easy way out”.
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