Many of us have had the displeasure of hearing the self-righteous motto, “If you’re on time, you’re late.” At least Fortune did during interviews with people on the streets of the business desert known as New York City’s Financial District. But it seems the phrase is becoming as old-fashioned as “the bees knees.”
The rules of work were thrown up in the air when the pandemic first hit, like a game of 52-card pick-up. And office workers found themselves at the epicenter of many new debates. If people can work from home or in the office, what does “showing up late” even mean?
Only 14% of employees cite punctuality as the most important workplace practice, according to a Monster survey of more than 1,000 workers in August.
“I was surprised that the number was so low,” Vicki Salemi, a career expert at recruitment agency Monster, told Fortune. She points to a staggering 76% of respondents who said consistently being late to meetings was one of the top five rude behaviors, noting that the 14% figure “seems particularly low considering it falls under the heading of punctuality.”
What’s more, only 51%, or one in two employers, emphasize punctuality in the workplace, according to Monster’s poll. Perhaps tardiness slips through the cracks more easily unless there’s a group project at hand. “If there’s a meeting, whether the employee is remote or on-site, their tardiness is easier to spot if it’s off to a rocky start and everyone is there except you,” Salemi added.
Below are the top five most annoying behaviors and how many employees find them most annoying:
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Not cleaning up after yourself (88%)
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Gossiping (81%)
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Using inappropriate language (78%)
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Not responding to messages (77%)
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Consistently arriving late to meetings (77%)
People don’t really care when you clock in unless it starts eating into their time. Employees “may be fine with their coworkers being late, but when it affects their ability to be productive, it’s extremely frustrating,” says Jennifer Moss, author of Unlocking happiness at work, told Fortune.
New way of working brings slightly different working hours
Jen Fisher, a global expert on wellbeing at work, noted that there has been a general trend towards relaxing strict punctuality over the past five years, which of course varies based on a person’s sector and industry. She attributed this phenomenon in part to the rise of flexible and distributed work.
“With the increasing adoption of remote and hybrid work models, particularly accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the concept of a rigid 9-to-5 workday has become less relevant for many,” she said. The focus on effectiveness rather than simply showing up, changing workplace cultures that emphasize work-life balance, and technology that enables asynchronous work are also contributing to this trend, Fisher noted.
Looking at the bigger picture anecdotally, “it seems like people have been caring about punctuality as much or slightly less over the last five years,” Salemi added. Everyone is kind of doing their own thing. “You may not be as aware of your coworkers’ schedules or you may lose track of them if they’re in the office that day or working remotely, there’s more flexibility in where we work and when,” she explained.
“I see this as an opportunity to rethink what punctuality means,” Moss said, noting how some workers, particularly women, can be late because of childcare responsibilities. “If there are good reasons for being late and it doesn’t impact anyone else, we can relax expectations. It’s when we’re burdening someone else that’s the most concerning.”
Naturally, some bosses have responded to this scattered workflow with heightened levels of paranoia, emphasizing presentism, turning to mandates or tracking productivity. “Even though that needle may have shifted a little bit, it’s still important to be on time,” Salemi said, adding that it sends a message that “you don’t care.”
Experts agree that the rules vary by sector: teachers or healthcare workers, for example, may not have the same freedom to come in when they want. The same goes for people with hourly jobs in the service sector. People with higher-seniority positions, however, may have a bit more leeway to come in late.
Maybe the best rule of thumb is not to throw out the rulebook altogether, even if it’s a little stupid. Maybe it’s about being strategic about your tardiness, as someone said in The fortune Street interview who said that being late means arriving “after your boss”.
This story originally appeared on Fortune.com
