A leading Indian public sector insurance company introduced a new policy to benefit its employees. The new policy aims at encouraging its employees to come on time to the office. As per the policy, employees get food coupons worth of an amount ranging Rs 50 to Rs 200 daily, if they come to the office at 10 AM (with ten-minute grace times). For this purpose, employees have to sign in to the computers, as soon as they enter the office. This provision is apart from employee's regular salary.
Administration point of view, 'Food coupons for punctuality' policy raised five important questions:
- Is it fair to give food coupons for punctuality, whereas, punctuality is an ethical responsibility of the employee?
- Is it providing a kind of facility to the employees to come late to the office?
- Will this policy truly helpful to the organization?
- What could be the actual idea of Human Resource Department of that insurance company? Aren't there any other better policies to improve the punctuality problem of that company?
- Will this policy become a matter of right in the future, though it is introduced as a matter of privilege?
I understand that in public sector companies, before formulating any policy, Human Resource Department has to take many things into consideration like employee unions, political interference, etc. So taking these things into consideration, HR department may have formulated this policy to maintain punctuality. However, I think punctuality should be induced in terms of ethical values, which eventually integrate the employee with the organization but not in terms of monetary incentives.
