Shifts are intended to give your employees the flexibility they need to punch on time (using rounding rules), and give you the sorting you need for clean comprehensive reports (using pre-defined shift start and end times). Using rounding rules helps everyone to start and end their shift on schedule, and helps to discourage employees from deviating from it.

To begin configuration of your shifts and their associated rules for rounding click on the “Policies” tab at the top and then click on the “Shifts” button.

If you intend to activate a shift, you first may modify the name of the shift at the top of the details section.  Second, Notice in the “Shift Rules” & “Lunch Rules” (See image below).  Check the box for Apply… and define your rounding rules.  “Trim” is a rule intended to take time from the employee and “Grace” is a rule intended to give time to the employee. The Lunch Rounding Rules are designed for you to define a window when and employee should leave for lunch, does not restrict when employees returns from lunch, however the lunch duration sets the minimum time the employee must be at lunch.

Employee Schedule Abuse

Employees can abuse the time tracking system even when time clocks and careful tracking are in place. For example, without auto-lunch a company will get employees who grab a lunch at the deli next door, eat at their desk, and get very little work done, abusing company's time-keeping system. This employee may develop a habit of these "working lunches", and start arriving late and leaving early because they "got their 8 hours in" already. A company can put an end to these abuses by adopting policies that encourage employees to be present for their exact shift.

Another example is an employee who shows up fairly early every day. They get their coffee, check their personal email, chat with whover else is there, but they don't start work till the shift starts and so the fact thay are there early is not something they should be getting paid for. Especially when, as in the first example, they take off a little early to compensate, leaving the company understaffed at the close of the shift.

Another example is an employee who, at the end of their shift, lingers at the end of the work day. Again, the work shift is over so if your company is on a schedule where it is unlikely they are still working, a rounding policy can help correct this abuse.

Another real-world example would be where a shift includes a time for clean-up at the end of the day. Say cleanup should take about a half hour, but if there are no rounding rules being applied. Employees are tired, dragging their feet a little, and even though if they hustle they could be out of there in 20 minutes and still do a good job, there is no incentive to do so and they end up taking 45 minutes to get through cleanup. By applying "grace period" rounding rules you can say that if they get cleanup done in less time, they still get paid through to the end of shift. Yes, you may pay the employees for 10 minutes they did not work, but the alternative is that you pay even more because the employees still haven't finished cleanup by the end of the shift.

Lets look at each of the rounding rules and how they work.

Rounding rules defined:

Auto lunch - If the employee works the necessary hours, then an autolunch will be created.  The Exception is if they have more than 1 punch pair for the shift.   For example 6:AM - 10:AM, then 10:01AM  - 4:PM will not get an autolunch deduction. Simply Clocking In (First Punch) during the expected lunch period does not prevent the AutoLunch from being performed. 

Shift Start Trim - If the employee arrives a few (X) minutes early, they are not paid for the time prior to the start of shift. Some days an employee comes in early at the request of the supervisor or because they have a lot to get done that day for a deadline etc. So we need to be able to distinguish between arriving a few minutes early as idle time, vs arriving early and getting right to work. In general setting trim time to a short time such as 12 to 6 minutes will correctly separate the two types of early arrivers.

Shift Start Grace Period - this is a setting that allows employees to show up a little late and not lose any pay. Sometimes arrival time can be a little flexible and this setting allows employers to do that. An employee's watch might be a minute or two different from the time clock, and giving a few minutes grace period can help ease tension over arrival time if shift start is not critical to the business.

Shift End Trim - an employee punches out several minutes after shift end. Setting a trim time helps the company hold to a strict shift end for maximum efficiency. Anyone who stays after work for a period that exceeds this trim time setting will be properly credited for all the time worked late. Those who clock out a few minutes after shift end will have their time rounded to exactly at shift end.

Shift End Grace Period - This rounds off the the punch out time recorded for employees who leave up to (X) minutes early, and rounds to the exact time of the scheduled shift end. This setting gives the employee up to (X) minutes more than they actually worked, and keeps the end-of-shift at a precise time.