June 28th 2023, Release Note: WFM UK | Scheduling: Paid Breaks

Summary

Release date: June 28th 2023

Paid Breaks in Scheduling 

• Enabled by Default? - No
• Set up by customer Admin? - Yes
• Enable via Support ticket? - No
• Affects configuration or data? - Yes

What’s Changing?

Introduction of a new setting that, when enabled, will allow breaks to be set as 'paid'.

Reason for the Change

To give the option for break minutes not to be deducted from employees' pay. 

Customers Affected

All Scheduling customers using the new Scheduling 2023 version. 

Release Notes 

Organisation Setting

The organisation setting Enable Paid Breaks will need to be applied by a system administrator.

• From the Scheduling homepage, go to Settings > Organisations
• Select Edit against the required Organisation
• Tick the box against Enable Paid Breaks and then Save

Fig.1 - Enable Paid Breaks setting

Once enabled, any Locations using paid breaks will need to be configured to use the functionality. 

To configure break rules:

• From the Scheduling homepage, go to Settings > Locations 
• Select Edit on the Location to enable paid breaks for

Fig.2 - Location Settings 

• Tick the box for Enable Paid Breaks and then select Save

Fig.3 - Location Settings Enable Paid Breaks

• Then, when scheduling shifts at that Location, use the Paid break switch as required and Save- see Fig.4

Fig.4 - Shift pop-up 'Paid break' switch - Schedule Page 

The break minutes will then not be deducted from the total minutes worked on that shift. Within the employee cell, the hours are the number of worked hours (excluding break minutes).

The example below in Fig.5 shows an employee who has worked 7 hours, though their shift ran from 10:00 to 17:30 (7.5 hours). The half-hour paid break is deducted from their hours 'worked' but it is included in the minutes sent to be processed in the payroll calculations.

Fig.5 -Employees' hours will be displayed as the hours worked (excluding break minutes)

Paid Breaks in Payroll 

Upon submission of the schedule, details of paid breaks will be included in employee payslips as a separate line.

• To view an employee's payslip, go to Payroll > Employees > Employee list > Select Employee
• Select Employee Payroll info > Past Payslips > View HTML

Fig 8. Past Payslip

Paid Breaks will be paid at the employee's normal hourly rate

Reporting

An option to include Paid Breaks in the Wage Cost function calculations has been added so that the full wage cost is available within the Analysis Page

• To add Paid Breaks to the wage Cost, go to Rotas > Administration > Wage Function Setting

Fig 9. Wage function setting

• To ensure the value of the paid breaks are included in the wage cost calculation, select Wage Cost
• To have the paid breaks cost displaying in the Analysis Page, select Display
• Input appropriate text to the Label and Help Text fields

The following Export will be updated with the Paid Breaks field and calculation when enabled in wage Function setting:

• Rotas > Reports > Weekly Overview report V3 

Paid Breaks in Automatic Breaks 

Automatic breaks functionality has been extended to support the following:

• 2 break records per shift
• Ability to set individual automatic breaks as 'paid'

In the example shown below, the Minimum Break rule is applied. This means that for any shifts lasting more than 7 hours, a total of 90 minutes of break time will be added. Of that time, 30 minutes will be paid and 60 minutes will be unpaid.

Fig.6 -Automatic break configuration

Fig.7 -Shift creation -  paid and unpaid automatic breaks