Merge's Blog

Tag Archives: survey results

And our survey contest winners are …

Last month we asked for your help in determining the topics and content for our Leadership Skills Series Live learning events for 2013, and your feedback was FANTASTIC! Thank you from the bottom of my heart for participating! Your input helps us give you learning programs that you want and need. We also promised that we would draw for four chances to win one of my Leadership Skills Series Live audio programs, either in downloadable mp3 or CD format, a $197 value. Our lucky winners are … drumroll please … Continue reading →

Tardiness at work – how often and why?

So I was catching up on some reading the other day and I came across a reference to a U.S.-nationwide survey conducted late last year that asked more than 7,000 employees and 3,000 employers (across a broad cross-section of industry segments and company sizes) about tardiness at work. You can read more about this study here, but here are a couple of the highlights:

  • 16% of workers reported they arrive late to work once a week or more and 27% of workers arrive late to work at least once a month.
  • The top three reasons for getting to work late are traffic (31%), lack of sleep (18%), and bad weather (11%).

My favorite section in the study however was examples of some of the most outrageous excuses employees gave for being tardy. They ranged from:

  • An employee thinking she had won the lottery (she hadn’t) to
  • An employee who believed that his commute time should count towards his work hours to
  • An employee whose leg was trapped between the subway car and platform (it was).

So what are some of the most outrageous excuses you’ve heard (or used :))? Let’s see if we can top this list.