---
title: "Tardiness and Absenteeism? Your Attendance System That Lets Employees Coast Is Dragging Your Company Down!"
description: "During recent market research, a common remark from sales teams is that when a company starts enforcing attendance, it signals decline, as thriving companies have no time to police attendance. While attendance itself adds no value or efficiency, it establishes rules and discipline. This article explains the significance of attendance for marketing teams, what to track, and key considerations for implementation."
author: "高级研究员 海游"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2023-09-09"
language: "en"
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original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/tEdWxY1-VnEak1DCwGfkJw"
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# Tardiness and Absenteeism? Your Attendance System That Lets Employees Coast Is Dragging Your Company Down!

> During recent market research, a common remark from sales teams is that when a company starts enforcing attendance, it signals decline, as thriving companies have no time to police attendance. While attendance itself adds no value or efficiency, it establishes rules and discipline. This article explains the significance of attendance for marketing teams, what to track, and key considerations for implementation.

During recent market research, when attendance was mentioned, a common remark from sales teams was: "When a company starts enforcing attendance, it signals the beginning of a decline." Because companies on the rise simply don't have time to manage employee attendance.
In essence, this is true: attendance itself does not bring value or create efficiency. Why, then, do most companies, except for a few startups, enforce attendance? What is its significance, value, and approach? Today, we will further explain attendance for marketing teams.
**What is the significance of attendance?**
Personally, for large and medium-sized enterprises, "enforcing attendance" should be understood from the perspective of the "broken windows effect."
What is the "broken windows effect"?
If negative phenomena in the environment are left unchecked, they will tempt people to imitate, or even escalate.
Take a building with a few broken windows: if those windows are not repaired, vandals may break more windows. Eventually, they might even break in, and if they find it unoccupied, they might squat there or set fires.
A wall with some graffiti that isn't cleaned will soon be covered with messy, unsightly scrawls; a sidewalk with a little litter will soon accumulate more trash, and eventually, people will casually toss garbage on the ground as if it's normal. This phenomenon is the broken windows effect from criminal psychology.
Summary: **Attendance itself does not bring value or create efficiency, but it can enforce rules and establish discipline.**
Internal processes, regulations, and systems must be executed and followed. If every worker has their own ideas and every employee acts according to their own habits, organizational efficiency will be very low. Attendance is the first step; emphasizing and strictly enforcing it lays the foundation for managing other processes.
**What should marketing teams focus on in attendance?**
Unlike back-office staff who are in the office daily and just need to clock in and out on time, with layers of supervision and task assignments, marketing teams working outside the office are different. Their hours are often irregular, 24/7, with greater flexibility, making simple clock-in/out checks nearly worthless.
I once had a subordinate whose attendance was flawless—never late, never early—but his region's performance kept declining. This raised a big question: What was he doing in the market every day? Was it effective?
We know that markets usually have an "inertia period." A good market won't deteriorate overnight even if the person in charge does nothing; it declines gradually, giving "coasters" an opportunity. Conversely, a bad market won't improve immediately even with diligent effort; it turns around gradually.
During this period, the value of attendance is not just time but also effectiveness—what market-beneficial actions the person in charge took that day.
Therefore, **attendance must satisfy both time and effectiveness requirements**. Let me share a company's attendance management plan.
1. Daily work hours evidence: 40 points
Other requirements: All evidence must be within the assigned area, showing the person (front face), work environment, and work status; administrative office work and customer development must include work content notes; cross-region meetings require document support. If unqualified, corresponding attendance points will be deducted. Evidence photos must be submitted before 24:00 that day; late submission is considered no attendance.
2. Daily effectiveness evidence: 60 points
- Picking up goods and loading materials before 18:00: 5 points
- Effective store visits: Visit stores with our product, provide evidence of shelf display: 5 points per store
- New product placement in terminal stores, displays, image stores: 5 points per store
- Organize product demonstrations/tastings: Must show overall environment and other work status: 10 points per event
- Attend/organize morning meetings, weekly meetings, monthly meetings: 5 points per meeting
- Organize practical training for distributors and sales staff: 5 points per session
- Key store negotiations: 10 points per successful negotiation
- Handle customer complaints (on-site evidence required): 10 points per case
- As needed, administrative office work, meetings, business travel, etc., must provide evidence of administrative office status and environment as required.
3. Attendance score = work hours evidence score + daily effectiveness score
Summary: **Attendance for field marketing teams must be two-pronged: time must be reflected in the market, and effectiveness is the breakdown of key actions for market improvement, supplemented by scores, to better quantify the marketing team's market contribution.**
Again, this attendance system is suitable for large and medium-sized enterprise marketing teams; do not copy it blindly.
**What should marketing teams pay attention to in attendance?**
I often hear marketing staff complain: when on business trips or communicating with clients late into the night, or having to meet several clients a day and attending social engagements in the evening, they forget to clock in due to negligence, and then their base salary or travel allowances are deducted. Overtime is not paid, but attendance is strictly enforced, and any slip results in fines, which seems very unreasonable.
In fact, many high-performing salespeople often pay insufficient attention to attendance, and many startups die due to unreasonable processes and systems. So, what should marketing teams, which create profits for the company, pay attention to in attendance?
**1. Attendance must consider the special nature of sales work**
First, there are three "don'ts": Don't use attendance to trap salespeople and dampen their passion; don't use harsh attendance to discourage self-motivated employees; don't use attendance to enslave marketing staff and make them lose a sense of security.
When HR implements the boss's requirements, they must communicate well with the sales department head, analyze the importance of discipline for the team, gain the department head's understanding and support, and design attendance processes and forms based on the sales department's actual situation, making it easy for managers to manage, giving sales managers some authority while maintaining oversight. This will better implement the system.
**2. Combine institutionalization with humanization to retain talent**
We always advocate: Strict attendance is fine, but there should be remedial measures.
For example, if someone is late due to work reasons, they can be exempted from punishment after providing relevant proof, making the punishment indisputable. A company needs strict systems, but punishing all violations indiscriminately is too dogmatic. Reasonable attendance requires flexibility and comprehensive consideration, providing humanistic care while institutionalizing.
A saying goes: A company without an attendance system cannot become a century-old store, but a company that relies solely on attendance cannot become one either.
Institutionalization means strictly implementing the attendance system and resolutely punishing employees who cross the line; humanization means that when employees are punished, they have a channel to appeal, or if they achieve certain performance, fines can be refunded, giving employees a chance to reform. Fully consider why it's done and whether it's suitable.
**3. Attendance management should not be decoupled from performance**
The purpose of attendance management for marketing teams is to improve work efficiency, promote smooth work, and better create value for the company. Once this principle is violated, attendance becomes meaningless and can even put the company at risk.
As in the attendance case I mentioned above, attendance consists of daily time and daily effectiveness. Especially the effectiveness part lists all factors that affect the marketing team's performance improvement, quantifies them one by one, and assigns scores. By judging the value of the day's work through scores, attendance management and performance improvement are deeply bundled, achieving twice the result with half the effort.
**4. Let corporate culture become the behavioral guide for attendance management**
The founder of IBM once said: "Any organization, if it wants to survive and succeed, must have a belief that is the highest principle for all decisions and actions."
The attendance system is a man-made decoration of corporate culture and a manifestation of company culture. Corporate culture is a set of values and behavioral norms recognized by all. To a certain extent, it influences employee behavior and attitudes, including attendance management.
A good corporate culture can encourage employees to participate more actively in attendance management, comply with rules, and attend on time. Companies can increase employees' attention to attendance and reduce tardiness and absenteeism by establishing a positive, respectful, and cooperative cultural atmosphere.
Furthermore, corporate culture can motivate employees to actively participate in attendance management through reward systems, training, and communication, forming a good behavioral guide.
**Final Note**
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