News

Vegas wins most punctual restaurant worker race, Oklahoma City, Charlotte not so much

March 8, 2019

The wind may sweep down the plains in Oklahoma, but in its capital city of Oklahoma City, foodservice workers tend to drag a little. That's the verdict from a study, from employee scheduling app Homebase, which said the city had a slightly worse work arrival rate than even the larger metro areas studied in an analysis of more than 2 million restaurant employee time cards nationally.

In Oklahoma City, more than 15 percent of foodservice employees were revealed to have "clocked in" late for their shifts.

In its study Homebase concentrated mostly on workers in metro areas where it has more than 300,000 data points. Of those cities, the restaurant workers in Charlotte, North Carolina proved to be the most tardy for their restaurant shifts, with workers clocking in late 14.8 percent of the time. That's well above the average late arrival rate for the nation as a whole of 11.1 percent. 

In a month of 20 shifts, an average employee will be late to roughly two shifts, for instance, according to the data. That means in Charlotte, North Carolina employees show up late for three shifts per month.

However, in the most punctual city for restaurant workers of Las Vegas, that number drops to less than 3 shifts every two months. The late clock-in rate in Vegas was just under 7 percent. 

Here's a list off the biggest winners and losers in the "got-to-get-to-work" race:

Most on-time cities and their late arrival rates include: 

• Las Vegas    6.95 percent
• Sacramento    9.07 percent
• San Diego    9.15 percent
• Seattle        10.18 percent
• San Jose    10.42 percent
• Dallas        10.50 percent
• Portland    10.66 percent
• Orlando    10.91 percent
• Tampa        10.94 percent
• Phoenix    10.96 percent

Worst cities for punctual restaurant workers include: 

• Charlotte    14.80 percent
• New York    12.83 percent
• Boston        12.81 percent
• Houston    12.74 percent
• Chicago    12.56 percent
• Atlanta        12.54 percent
• San Francisco    12.52 percent
• Los Angeles    11.85 percent
• Miami        11.65 percent
• D.C.        11.57 percent

Note: Oklahoma City had a slightly worse late arrival rate than those cities listed of 15.09 percent, but the report only lists metro areas where Homebase has more than 300,000 data points.

Probable causes like commute times and minimum wage rates were also ruled out as causes since both the most and least on-time cities averaged about the same for commute times and minimum wage rates, Homebase said. 

Finally, as far as the types of food service employees were most and least punctual in, Homebase found grocery (6 percent), convenience store (10 percent) and casual or fine dining (10 percent) employees were most on time. Delivery (23 percent), food truck (16 percent) and QSR workers (16 percent) proved to be most often late to work.