What counts as a late arrival?
A late arrival is a clock-in recorded after the start of the shift that particular person was assigned, plus whatever grace their employer allows. The yardstick is personal, not company-wide. Somebody on a shift starting at noon who arrives at 11:55 is early, even where most colleagues started at ten.
Lateness only means something against a named start time. Without one, the whole idea collapses into opinion.
So the measure has to reach for the right window. A team running two shifts has two start times on the same morning. Judging both against the earlier one turns every afternoon worker into a chronic offender and hides genuine lateness on the early shift.
That is why the assignment carries a date. Move somebody from a ten o'clock start to a noon start in April and every April morning is judged against noon. Every March morning keeps being judged against ten.
The grace allowance sits on top. It is a policy width, not a fact about the person, and widening it by five minutes lifts everybody's figure at once.
One more thing shapes the answer. A late arrival is a fact about a clock, and nothing more. It says a person started after a stated time. It says nothing about why, and the record holds no reason field to guess with. A train, a sick child and a slow morning all look the same on the row.
That is why the number is best read as a prompt to ask rather than as a finding. Ten mornings of three minutes is a parking problem. One morning of ninety minutes is a conversation. Both count as late days, and only the minute figure tells them apart.
A day with no assigned shift has nothing to measure against. Those arrivals record a time without producing a lateness figure, which is one reason shift coverage matters before punctuality reporting does.
Check which shift you are on before querying a late record. The assignment history shows what applied on the date in question, who assigned it and when it started.
Related questions
Does arriving early cancel out a late morning?
No. Early arrivals record nothing rather than a negative figure. Letting one offset the other would hide the pattern the measure exists to show.
Who decides the grace allowance?
The employer, in its own policy. There is no figure in the product that anybody inherits by default, and no rule here about what any country expects.
Can I see my own late record?
Yes. Marking your own attendance and seeing your own record sit in the baseline every account holds, which the product describes as not a permission and not removable.