A tardiness policy is the part of the attendance policy that gets applied most often and written down least. Everyone on the crew knows there is a rule about being late; almost nobody can say how many minutes late is late, what it scores, or how many tardies reach the threshold. An employee tardiness policy written as numbers answers all three, and it is the difference between a lead scoring a tardy the same way in March and June and a lead scoring it by mood. This page says which numbers a tardiness policy has to state and how they interact with the rest of the policy, and the free attendance policy template on this site writes them from the employer's own figures, with no account.
The grace period: the minutes that make a tardy
The first number is the grace: how many minutes after the scheduled start an arrival is still on time. A policy without one is a policy where a lead decides, and a lead who has been generous in March cannot be strict in June without the write-up looking personal. The template on this site takes the grace as a number of minutes the employer chooses and states it once; the roll call then records an arrival past the grace as a tardy and an arrival inside it as on time. The same grace applies to leaving early, if the employer chooses to score that, and the policy should say so rather than leave the lead to extend the rule.
What a tardy scores, and how many reach the threshold
The second number is the points. On this site's worked example a tardy is 0.5 points against a threshold of 8, an unexcused absence is 1 and a no-call is 2, in a 12-month rolling window. The count of tardies that reaches the threshold follows from the arithmetic: sixteen tardies alone, or eight tardies plus four absences, or four tardies plus three no-calls. Stating the policy as points rather than as a bare count of tardies means an employee who is late twice and absent once is scored the same way as one who is late four times, and the attendance points calculator on this site shows where each stands on the page.
When a late arrival becomes an absence
The third number is the cut-off: how late is no longer a tardy but a missed shift. A crew member who arrives three hours into a four-hour shift has not worked the shift, and a policy that scores that as a tardy scores it at a quarter of an absence for three-quarters of the harm. The template states the cut-off as minutes or as a share of the shift, and the roll call records an arrival past it as an absence, with the notice rule deciding whether it is an absence or a no-call. Written down, the three numbers cover every late arrival without a judgement call.
The tardies that score nothing
Some late arrivals cannot be scored whatever the policy says: a late arrival that is part of intermittent leave under the FMLA, or a modified start time that is a reasonable accommodation under the ADA. The Department of Labor's and the EEOC's pages linked below describe each. The policy should say that a tardy later shown to be protected is re-scored to zero with the reason recorded, and the record should hold it that way, so the write-up that follows the next unexcused tardy can show the exception was honoured. The rules on hours worked, also linked, govern what the late arrival means for pay, which is a separate question from what it scores.
Questions people ask about tardiness policy
What should an employee tardiness policy include?
Three numbers: the grace period in minutes after the scheduled start, the points a tardy scores against the threshold, and the cut-off past which a late arrival is an absence. With the rest of the attendance policy's numbers (absence and no-call points, the threshold, the window) it covers every late arrival without a judgement call.
How many tardies before a write-up?
The policy's arithmetic decides: on this site's worked example a tardy is 0.5 points against a threshold of 8, and most employers set a reminder at a lower total, so the write-up comes at the total the policy names rather than at a bare count. The attendance points calculator shows the total for any mix of tardies, absences and no-calls.
Is there a free tardiness policy template?
The attendance policy template on this site states the grace, the tardy points, the cut-off and the rest of the policy from the employer's own figures, prints as it stands and needs no account.