Running late today - you're not alone!

Career Builder released a study today with Harris Interactive that points to tardiness in the workplace. Shockingly, the study says that one in five employees are running late to work at least once a week!

In contrast, the next day Career Builder released this study as reported by HRReporter.com that points to the recession for improving the punctuality of US employees.

As an employer, do these numbers add up to you? Perhaps you're one of the three in ten employers that the Canadian study says have fired an employee for tardiness?

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Nearly One-in-Five Workers Late to the Office at Least Once a Week, Finds New CareerBuilder Canada Survey

    -- Hiring Managers Share Most Outrageous Tardiness Excuses --

TORONTO, Feb. 23, 2011 /CNW/ -- Workers may be having a tough time with their time management as more are arriving late to their desks. A new CareerBuilder.ca survey reveals that 19 per cent of workers said they arrive late to work at least once a week, up from 17 per cent last year. Eleven per cent said they are late two or more times a week. This survey was conducted among 227 Canadian employers and 550 Canadian employees between November 15 and December 2, 2010.

Workers shared a variety of reasons for being tardy, such as lack of sleep (24 per cent) and traffic (24 per cent). Fifteen per cent blamed public transportation for their tardiness, while twelve per cent indicated bad weather delayed them. Other common reasons included getting kids to school or daycare, Internet use or their spouse.

"While workers will sometimes be late due to circumstances out of their control, they need to be aware of their companies' tardiness policies," said Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources for CareerBuilder. "Regardless of the reason, workers who are running late should always be honest with their managers."

While some employers are more lenient with worker tardiness, others have stricter policies. Three-in-ten (30 per cent) employers said they have terminated an employee for being late.

Hiring managers provided the following examples of the most outrageous excuses employees offered for arriving late to work:

    --  Employee claimed a bear stopped his car and broke his window and tried
      to grab them.
  --  Employee claimed a prostitute stole his car keys.
  --  Employee claimed he couldn't find his clothes.
  --  Employee claimed his dog ate his Blackberry.
  --  Employee claimed he ran over himself with the company truck.
  --  Employee claimed he was playing a video game and didn't want to break
      up the group he was playing with.
  --  Employee claimed her grandmother went missing.
  --  Employee claimed he forgot it was a workday.


  Survey Methodology

This survey was conducted online within Canada by Harris Interactive© on behalf of CareerBuilder.com among 227 Canadian employers and 550 Canadian workers (employed full-time; not self-employed; non-government) ages 18 and over between November 15 and December 2, 2010 (percentages for some questions are based on a subset, based on their responses to certain questions). With pure probability samples of 227 and 550 one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/- 6.5 and +/- 4.18 percentage points, respectively. Sampling error for data from sub-samples is higher and varies.

    About CareerBuilder.ca:

CareerBuilder.ca is a leading job site in Canada. Owned by Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI), the Tribune Company, The McClatchy Company (NYSE: MNI) and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT), CareerBuilder.ca powers the career centers for more than 250 Canadian partners that reach national, local, industry and niche audiences. These include leading portals such as MSN.ca and Macleans.ca. Job seekers visit CareerBuilder.ca every month to search for opportunities by industry, location, company and job type, sign up for automatic e-mail job alerts, and get advice on job hunting and career management. For more information about CareerBuilder.ca products and services, visit http://www.careerbuilder.ca.