Allowing employees to take breaks during their workday is essential to maintaining their productivity levels, and tracking these breaks is crucial for compliance purposes. The Time Clock's break capability allows you to seamlessly monitor and record break hours, ensuring accuracy and fair break allocation. With Connecteam, you can set up different types of breaks - let's explore this further!
This article will cover:
Types of Breaks
There are two types of breaks you can set based on your needs: Manual or Automatic breaks. Let's understand the differences between them, how they work for employees, and how they are reflected in the timesheets.
Manual Breaks
This option allows users to manually start and end breaks at flexible times. These manual breaks can be paid or unpaid.
Paid - The break time is included in the Daily Total hours, which are used to calculate payroll. In the example below, you can see the lunch break is a paid break so the 30 minutes the user took will be included in their daily total hours.
Unpaid - The break time is excluded from the Daily Total hours. In the example below, you can see the rest break is an unpaid break so the 30 minutes the user took will be excluded from their daily total hours.
Manual breaks are ideal for users who don’t have a fixed break schedule but still need to track the timing and location of their breaks. If you select this option, the relevant users will have a break button in their time clock that they can use to start and end their manual breaks.
Automatic Breaks
This option automatically deducts a specified amount of time after a certain number of working hours, which you can set according to your requirements. For example, a 30-minute break can be automatically deducted after five hours of work. This is a great choice for compliance purposes if, for example, you need to adhere to certain break laws in your country. Automatic breaks are always unpaid, meaning the set break time will be subtracted from the Daily Total hours for each employee. As you can see in the example below, based on our settings, the user had 30 minutes deducted after 7 worked hours. Although the user was clocked in for a total of 9 hours, the Daily Total used for payroll calculation is 8.5 hours.
Please note: if you decide to use the option of automatic breaks, keep in mind that once you activate them, they will be added to all past timesheets retrospectively.
How to Activate the Breaks
To activate and set up the breaks:
Login to your admin dashboard
Navigate to the Time Clock feature from the left sidebar and then access the relevant clock
Click on the Settings and then the Breaks tab
By default, breaks will be disabled. Select the type of break you need.
Manual breaks - this option allows you to create one or multiple breaks for various purposes (lunch, rest, etc). Enter a title for the break for the user to clearly understand its purpose, then select whether it will be paid or unpaid and set its duration (ranging from 5 minutes to 2 hours).
Automatic breaks - This option allows you to set a specific break duration (ranging from 5 minutes to 2 hours) that will be automatically deducted after a chosen number of worked hours. The deduction can occur after any daily total of 2 to 23.5 hours. You can also add multiple automatic breaks.
Once you make your selection and customize it, remember to save changes.
All done! The selected breaks have now been activated.
ℹ️ Frequently Asked Questions
What if my employee forgot to clock into a break?
What if my employee forgot to clock into a break?
As an account admin, you can manually add a break in your user's timesheets with a few simple steps from both the mobile app and admin dashboard.
Admin Dashboard
Log in to the admin dashboard
Access the Time Clock feature, then the relevant clock
Go to the Timesheets tab and select the user you need
Hover over the day where they forgot to clock into a break and, under the Type column, select the break. Then add the start and end time.
If needed, adjust the rest of his shift so no issues are found on their timesheet.
All done!
Mobile App
Log in to the mobile app and then access the Admin tab
Go into the Time Clock, then the Timesheets tab, and enter the timesheet of the employee you need
Select the relevant data where they forgot to clock into a break, press on Add to this day, and choose Add break
Enter the details of the break and then add it
If needed, adjust the rest of his shift so no issues are found on their timesheet.
All done!
I can't see the breaks on my user's timesheet
I can't see the breaks on my user's timesheet
If you are using automatic unpaid breaks but don’t see them reflected on the user’s timesheet, you may need to add the relevant column. Click on the column icon on the right side, then select Break Hours. This will add the column to the timesheet, displaying the amount of time deducted from the user's worked hours for that day.
I can't see the break time when exporting the timesheets
I can't see the break time when exporting the timesheets
For automatic unpaid breaks, the exported timesheets should be as payroll-ready as possible. Editing and viewing all raw data is done on the dashboard, as it's easier and more capable than the Excel spreadsheet. To comply with labor law, unpaid breaks are deducted from an employee's Daily Total work hours.
Can I change the break time for a specific day?
Can I change the break time for a specific day?
Yes! You absolutely can. Any admin with access to the employee timesheet can edit a break's 'Start' and 'End' time. Once you edit it, the timesheet entry will have an orange dot next to it, indicating that it was manually edited. Hover with the click mouse to see who the admin is who edited the break time.
What should I do if I have different break settings for different employees?
What should I do if I have different break settings for different employees?
If you want to have different break times for different employees or any other time clock settings, you can simply add time clock. With multiple time clocks, you'll be able to have completely different settings for different employees within your company. Please note: the ability to add more than one time clock is available from the Advanced plan under the Operations hub and above.
*Manual breaks are available from the Basic plan and Automatic breaks are available from the Advanced plan under the Operations Hub*
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