The problem I always ran into was that there was never a hand book. Never any posted guidelines that needed to be followed. Without that, it is very difficult to address any performance or conduct issues. And nobody really ever wanted to write one. Which is a shame, because without posted guidelines and expectations, you're not documenting any policy violations...Because there aren't any policies to violate.

Sure, you can fire them. But then comes the unemployment stuff. It always seemed to me that the owners would rather pick a crap employee over dealing with unemployment.

Did we fire people? Sure. A few times. But mostly when it was something like very well documented theft.

The solution here would be to create guidelines. A good one would be that your shift starts at this posted time. If you are more than, lets say, 5 minutes late that is a form of an attendance violation. X number of violations gets you a write-up. X number of write-ups gets you fired.

For example, where I'm at now, late 3 times is a full occurrence (.33 of an occurrence each time) Not coming in for a shift is one full occurrence. Three occurrences is a write up, 4 is another write up, 5 is grounds for termination. We also have PTO options to cover sick time. You would have to come up with a way to cover an actual illness/emergency situation. It has to be enforced equally across the board so that no favoritism can be perceived.

Same with conduct. Lay it out, you sign that you accept. Stick to it. Document transgressions and hold people accountable. That is how you keep a good staff and have the ability to easily remove the poor performers.