If you have hourly employees who work varied hours, you need schedules.
Every business is different, scheduling comes down to having enough staff to cover demand. Maybe a lunch rush for a restaurant, a promotion for a retail store, or a production deadline for a manufacturer. Whatever it is, you try to balance what needs to be done with the number of people to do it.
If you have a large business, you might have someone who measures workload requirements based on FTE (full-time equivalent) to determine how much staff is required for certain events. But for most small businesses, you probably base those decisions purely on experience, not analytics.
Either way, schedules will help keep your business running smooth.
Once you're ready to build the schedule, the process is simple. Enter the hours each employee should work, then make sure each employee can see it. That's it. From there, it's up to your employees to show up, clock in, and get to work.
Webtimeclock schedules are built using shifts... each shift has a start time, end time, and possible meal break. You can create as many shifts as you need to customize your scheduling.
Below, as an example, I'm creating a shift named "Day" that goes from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM and has a 30 minute lunch break starting at 12:30 PM.
Once I click Add, the shift is created, other features become available. I now have two available options: Shift lockout, and Meal break lockout.
Shift lockout - Prevents employees from clocking before the shift starts, and after the shift ends. This can help when employees habitually clock in early or out late. But don't allow employees to work off the clock. If they have to, make sure to edit their timesheets.
Meal break lockout - States like California require employers to provide a full 30-minute break for hourly workers for every 5 hours worked. If they take less than 30 minutes, the employer could be vulnerable to fines. Our Meal break lockout helps ensure employees can't clock back in until their full meal break is completed. But like shift lockout, don't allow employees to work off the clock.
Now with my shift added, I can assign an employee to the shift. To do that, go to Schedules, then click any day on the calendar for the employee. On this form, I've selected the Day shift to be applied to Monday - Friday, set it to Recurring, then clicked Save. Now it's saved to occur every week. You can save it to occur just for one week too.
Last, when an employee signs in, they can view their schedule too 🎉
We hope our employee scheduling keeps your business running smoothly.