You can add break minutes directly to a shift, schedule breaks with start and finish times, allow employees to record their own breaks, or use a combination of these options across your roster.
Breaks can be paid or unpaid, and unpaid breaks can be deducted from the employee’s total shift time.
Choosing how breaks are handled
There are a few ways breaks can be managed in Urhere:
Add paid or unpaid break minutes to the shift
Schedule breaks with a start and finish time
Use scheduled or actual timed breaks to calculate total break minutes
Allow employees to start and finish breaks themselves
Using break minutes only
The simplest way to apply a break is to enter the total number of paid or unpaid break minutes on the shift.
For example, if an employee works from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM and has a 30 minute unpaid break, Urhere will deduct 30 minutes from the total shift time.
This option is useful when you do not need to track the exact time the break was taken.
[Screenshot: Shift window showing paid and unpaid break minute fields]
Using timed breaks
Timed breaks let you add a start and finish time for each break.
This is useful when you want to show when breaks are expected to be taken, or when employees need to start and finish breaks from their device.
Timed breaks can be used as a record only, or they can be used to calculate the total break minutes for the shift.
[Screenshot: Shift window showing timed break start and finish times]
Using timed breaks to calculate total break minutes
If Use Timed Breaks to Calculate Total Break Minutes is turned on, Urhere calculates the total break time from the timed breaks added to the shift.
When the shift is rostered, Urhere uses the scheduled break times.
Once the shift has been worked, Urhere can use the actual break times recorded by the employee.
For example, a 30 minute unpaid meal break and a 15 minute unpaid rest break can be used to calculate the total unpaid break minutes for the timesheet.
[Screenshot: Break settings showing Use Timed Breaks to Calculate Total Break Minutes]
Allowing employees to record breaks
Managers can choose whether employees are allowed to start and finish breaks themselves.
This is useful when break times vary during the day or employees need to record when their break was actually taken.
Break settings
Default break behaviour can be managed from:
Schedule Settings > Shift & Schedule Settings > Breaks
From here, managers can control how breaks behave across the schedule, including whether employees can start and finish their own breaks.
[Screenshot: Schedule Settings showing Breaks configuration]