Punctuality

Arriving to work on time, showing up to meetings on time, and delivering work on time are all fundamental aspects of professional conduct. If someone cannot be trusted to be where they are supposed to be, by when they are supposed to be there; or be trusted to deliver what they committed to deliver, it will be difficult for people to trust them with anything at all.

Professionals show up to work on time so that our colleagues know when to expect us, and therefore know when everyone will be available to start working together. When we are late to work, we communicate that we are irresponsible, do not care about our colleagues' time, and are not concerned with the productivity of our organization.

If your company has core hours of 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, then you should be at your desk no later than 9:00 am because your colleagues might need your help, or need to ask you a question, or need your contribution to a discussion. If you instead show up at 9:30, then colleagues who needed you would be forced to wait for your arrival, which wastes their time, and lowers overall productivity.

While there is always a valid reason for being late to work - as there are many things far outside of our control, there is never a valid excuse - because as a professional, it is your responsibility - and no one else's - to arrive at work on time.

A common strategy to help ensure that you show up to work on time is to shift your schedule early enough to give you the extra time you might need in case things go wrong.

For example, if you sometimes wake up 30 minutes late, set your alarm 30 minutes early. If there is a chance you might miss the bus, train, or subway, arrive early enough to the pickup point or station so that missing your departure is impossible. If you know that traffic conditions are highly variable, then leave early enough to make sure you arrive at work before rush hour.

There is a saying that goes, "If you're on time, you're late. If you're early, you're on time," which is a reminder to be early, so that we are never late.

Showing up to meetings on time only requires that we pay attention to notifications for upcoming meetings. If we ignore meeting notifications, and are late to a meeting, we communicate to the meeting organizer that we do not care about their meeting, and communicate to the meeting attendees that you didn't care about anything they might have said before your arrival.

In situations where you have back-to-back meetings scheduled, if one meeting puts you at risk of being late to another, you should excuse yourself from the first meeting to make sure you are not late for the second. For example, if you have one meeting at 10:00 am that is scheduled for an hour, and another meeting that starts immediately afterwards at 11:00 am, then at 10:55 you should politely inform the meeting organizer that you have an 11:00 am meeting, and will need to excuse yourself.

Though showing up to work on time only requires proper planning, and showing up to meetings on time only requires that you pay attention to meeting notifications, making sure you deliver work on time can require quite a bit of experience, as it ultimately boils down to knowing how to set proper expectations. If we set expectations for when we will be done, and then miss our own deadline, then we communicate that we are not dependable, and should not be trusted with important tasks.

The challenge with setting expectations for work delivery is that there are situations where it is impossible to know precisely how much time you will need, especially when you don't know what you don't know, as tends to happen when you are doing something for the first time.

For example, if you were asked to prepare a weekly sales summary, and you had prepared weekly sales summaries for the past year, then you would know how long that work should take. However, if you were assigned the task of preparing a quarterly earnings report, but you had never prepared a quarterly earnings report before, you don't know what you don't know, and therefore won't know how long completing that work will take.

Even if you have done something before, and have a good idea how long it should take, you should still add contingency time just in case something doesn't go according to plan. How much contingency you should add tends to depend on the complexity of the task, as more complexity tends to invite more delivery risk. As a general rule, 30% contingency time offers a reasonable cushion for low-risk tasks, but 300% contingency might be needed for very risky tasks - even if you've done something similar before.

When setting expectations for when something will be delivered, your answer should either be a time with some contingency built in or the statement "I'm not sure when I can get this done - when do you need it by?" If you are told when it's needed by, you can then say, "I'll do my best to get it done in that timeframe, but I can't guarantee that I will be able to."

Saying you don't know how long something will take - when you truly do not know how long something will take - is honest, and as a professional, you should always try to be honest. It is far better to get the reputation of someone who says, "I'm not sure when I can get this done" than to get the reputation of someone who always commits to getting something done by a specific time, yet never does.

When you do start working, you should keep a close eye on the clock, and make sure that you are being as productive as possible. If you notice that things are taking longer than expected, you should reach out to whoever assigned you the task and reset expectations, by telling them your revised estimate for when your work will be completed. Generally, people will be far more understanding of hearing something will be late before it is due, rather than only finding out something will be late when it is due.

Showing up to work on time, never being late to meetings, and setting expectations on when work will be delivered, all form the foundation of your professional reputation. If you can't be trusted to be where you're needed, when you're needed, or depended upon to do the things you say you're going to do, people will find it hard to consider you a professional, no matter how expert you may otherwise be.