So you've got an employee who is chronically late. How do you deal with that? I'll tell you what some managers do. They schedule a meeting with that person first thing in the morning. But I don't think that's the best approach. You've got somebody who is late every morning? Schedule a meeting with that person just before that person leaves. And here's what you say:

"Hey tomorrow you know we start at eight o'clock, right?"
"Yeah, yeah, eight o'clock."
"So you know that's our starting time, right? Because you know you've been coming in 15 or 20 minutes late a lot of days."
"Yeah, yeah, I understand that."
"So it's eight o'clock, are you with me?"
"Yeah, Yeah."
"So maybe you could get here at 5 minutes to eight. Do you think so?"
"Well, uh, OK."
"How long does it take you to get to work?"
"About a half hour."
"Oh, I see, about a half hour. How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?"
"About 40 minutes."
"What time do you get up in the morning?"
"Seven o'clock."
"There's your problem. See, I think you need to start getting up at six-thirty, because it takes you forty minutes to get ready. It takes you thirty minutes to get here, and we want you to get here at 5 minutes of eight. So I think you should set your alarm for six-thirty. Actually, do you have your cell phone here? Because maybe you should set your cell phone alarm for six-thirty, right now."

Now, that may be overdoing it, but you have that conversation with somebody on their way out the door and I promise you that person will be on time tomorrow.