by Adele Gregory

Created on: April 03, 2009   Last Updated: April 05, 2009

You might not always know you will arrive to work first, but if you have a colleague who's always late you'll know fairly quickly who's going to bring up the rear. For bosses and co-workers, the predictability can often be as exasperating as the tardiness itself. The problem with heading straight for a reason that someone is always late to work is that you have at least three variables to consider: it could be about work, general time-keeping or mornings.

Because work is usually the first appointment of the day, Factor X could be morning and this points to sleeping habits. Some people truly are night owls and early starts will always be a struggle. But sleep disorders such as insomnia, sleep apnoea and nightmares can also leave a person too bedraggled to rouse for the first three alarms. Then there is the problem of getting to bed too late. Habits like reading or playing on the computer can continually keep someone up until the small hours. There are even folk who live in busy, noisy households who choose to stay up when everyone else has gone to bed because it's their only chance for quiet and solitude.

Other late-arrivers seem to have trouble with the actual physics of time. It might not be possible to grasp or pour time, but minutes and hours are a quantity like volume. Some people have as much trouble judging how long it takes to get from A to B as I do knowing which container will best fit my leftover soup.

I saw this in practice one day when I was rushing out the door for a meeting twenty-five minutes drive east of the office. A co-worker saw me and asked if I could give him a lift to a location which was a fifteen-minute journey west. I explained to him that I could not. The round trip journey to his destination would take half an hour, and, as he was not ready to leave, there would be five or minutes delay in setting out so I was certain to be late for my meeting. He looked blank and didn't understand why I wouldn't stay and discuss it further.

There can, of course, be psychological reasons why someone is always late for work. People who feel tense or apprehensive about their work can sometimes put off thinking about it for as long as possible then make a mad dash at the last minute (rushing also keeps them from thinking about it too much). Others, who may feel a bit uncertain or self-conscious, can find it easier to arrive when the hustle and bustle of the office is already in full swing.

On a deeper level, habitual lateness can be a form of self-sabotage. Self-sabotage often comes when someone expects things to go wrong or to be criticized so they unconsciously choose to do it by their own hand rather than be surprised or left in suspense.

It's not always easy for managers and co-workers to help someone overcome consistent lateness. Habits are hard to break and psychological mechanisms are often unconscious. One thing you can do, however, is share your own time-keeping tips and suggestions and shift the focus from "being late" to how to arrive on time.

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