With return-to-office mandates becoming more common across the country, employees are hurrying back to work —but they needn’t worry about being on time.
Punctuality is no longer the big deal it once was, according to a new report in Fortune, with experts saying hybrid work models popularized during the Covid pandemic have relaxed rules around tardiness.
“The concept of a rigid 9-to-5 workday has become less relevant for many,” workplace wellbeing expert Jen Fisher told the publication.
And employees around America agree.
A meager 14% of employees cite tardiness as an irritating office behavior, according to a survey of 1,000 workers conducted by the job recruitment company Monster.
Many white-collar workers are now glued to their smartphones around the clock, meaning they can communicate with colleagues via email or tools such as Teams and Slack — even while they’re commuting into the office for one of their mandated “in-person days.”
Author Jennifer Moss told Fortune that the surprising survey results are “an opportunity to rethink what punctuality means.”
The survey examined irritating work behaviors and found that, while workers weren’t phased by their colleagues arriving at the office on time, they were peeved when they were late for mandated meetings.
A sizable 77% of survey participants listed that behavior as frustrating office etiquette.
“If there is a meeting, whether the employee is remote or on-site, their tardiness is more easily detectable when there’s a hard start and everyone is already present but you,” Monster career expert Vicki Salemi told Fortune.
Meanwhile, 77% of respondents also said a colleague’s unresponsiveness to messages also left them annoyed.
However, the most irritating office behavior? Failure to clean up after oneself.
A whopping 88% of respondents ranked that the number one most enrgaing behavior, while gossiping (81%) and the use of inappropriate language (78%) ranked second and third.
Meanwhile, changing rules around punctuality may not just come down to a hybrid work model, but also the new makeup of the workforce.
Gen Z struggle with “time blindness,” or chronic lateness, with a sizable 20% of Gen Zers admitting to being late to work often, according to a past survey.
And while it may seem like no big deal, Salemi says that extreme and frequent tardiness is still largely unacceptable, as it signals that “you do not care.”
Moss adds that it’s important to keep colleagues in mind.
“If there are fair reasons for being late and it’s not impacting others, we can relax the expectations… [but] it’s when we’re burdening someone else that causes the most concern,” she said
