This article goes in depth to show you how to record different shift scenarios in ShiftCare
Before you begin
This article makes the following assumptions:
- You have installed the award called 'Pay Cat - Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award 2010 Template'. Read more about this template here
- You have completed all the steps in the ShiftCare Integration Set-Up Guide.
Sleepover
A sleepover should be broken into shift components, with sleepovers shown as a shift component.
Example:
Shaun works a sleepover shift from 7PM Wednesday night to 9AM Thursday morning. The Sleepover portion of this shift operates from 10PM Wednesday night to 6AM Thursday morning.
Shaun would enter his shift in 3 parts into ShiftCare:
- First shift: 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM
- Second shift: 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM (Allowance: Sleepover).
- Third shift: 6:00 AM to 9:00 AM
Pay Cat will turn the sleepover portion into an allowance for you. It will also identify if:
- One side of the sleepover that is worked is at least 4 hours
- Either side of the sleepover is attracting shiftwork penalties (night shift in the above example).
Work During Sleepover
In an everyday context, 'work during sleepover' shifts are not known at the time of scheduling. It is typically after the shift has happened that a support worker will contact their roster manager and let them know about interrupted sleepovers.
ShiftCare allows a roster manager to attach an allowance to a shift.
When creating a sleepover shift, your employee advises you that they have worked one or more work during sleepover shifts. If the shift duration is less than an hour, choose "Awake 1". Otherwise, choose the allowance appropriate to the total duration of awake hours.
To attach the allowance to the shift:
- Go to Scheduler
- Find the shift part that is using the 'sleepover' shift type and click on the shift
- Choose Edit to open up shift editing (note you may need to remove the approval first)
Scroll to Shift > Allowance and choose the duration of the Work During Sleepover (in total). Note that you should only make one 'Awake' selection. Choose 'save' when finished.
The example above will create the following shifts when imported into payroll via Pay Cat's ShiftCare timesheet importer:
- Sleepover - 10:00 PM to 12:30 AM
- Work during sleepover - 12:30 AM to 03:30 AM
- Sleepover - 03:30 AM to 06:00 AM
We recommend reviewing work during sleepover shifts directly in payroll, particularly in cases where the time before midnight lies on a Sunday or Public Holiday. This is to ensure that overtime is captured on the right day at higher overtime rates.
Leave
ShiftCare requires a user to capture unavailability to prevent a shift from being assigned to an employee on leave. Unavailability is not included in the timesheet export used for importing into payroll.
Our suggested workflow for leave is as follows:
- An employee requests leave using the Swag App or via the Employee Self-Service Portal
- A roster manager reviews and approves the leave
- At the same time, the roster manager records the employee as unavailable for the dates they are on leave in ShiftCare.
It's a good idea to give your timesheet approvers in ShiftCare access to approve leave in payroll. This video article takes you through the setup process
Leave as a timesheet
With the exception of employees on a salary, all approved leave requests should be included as a timesheet in payroll. This ensures that the SCHADS rule engine has a chance to interpret these as shifts. This will consist of areas of the award such as:
- Determining the most appropriate leave loading on weekends
- Determining if penalty rates apply to work regularly performed on weekends.
- Determining if fortnightly overtime applies to a pay period that includes paid leave.
To ensure a higher level of accuracy when converting leave requests to timesheets, we highly recommend that each full-time or part-time employee uses 'advanced work patterns' found in Employee > Pay Run Defaults.
For further reading, please see:
Converting leave requests into timesheets
Rest breaks between rostered work
The SCHADS Award provides a penalty for permanent staff who work within 10 hours of their previous shift. If the previous shift is a sleepover, that break can be 8 hours by agreement. We assume this agreement has been made. Please reach out to your customer success specialist if you only follow a 10 hour break.
The good news is that you don't need to record anything special to see this penalty apply! The Pay Cat SCHADS Template will identify if your shift is after a sleepover or it isn't, and apply a penalty rate if it is within the required 10-hour (or 8-hour) break.
Broken shifts
Broken shifts affect shifts in certain sectors where there are more than one (or two) shifts on the same day. The Pay Cat SCHADS Template does not require anything recorded on the shift - it will identify these instances and apply the appropriate allowance.
Another part of having a broken shift is that penalty rates apply where the shift is outside of a 12-hour span. That is, if the ultimate start time of the day's first shift is more than 12 hours ago, any time beyond the point of 12 hours is paid at penalties. Again, the Pay Cat SCHADS Template will apply the appropriate penalty without requiring shift labelling.
24-hour care shifts
A 24-hour care shift is a shift where a home care employee is required to be available for duty in a client’s home for a 24-hour period.
We have an allowance called '24-hour care shift' to be used for the portion of time where the employee works. We also have '24 hour care shift - inactive time' to record times where the employee is on site but not working.
Be careful not to record the time the employee spends overnight as inactive time. It will force the timesheets to consolidate over multiple days and the interpreter will read this as one giant shift (with implications for overtime)
The inactive time shift type should only be used for situations where the employee is temporarily inactive, not asleep. An example of this is as follows:
Jerry is performing a 24 hour Care Shift for George. Jerry is required to work from 9AM through to 2:30PM. Jerry will then have some downtime between 2:30PM and 3:30PM and continue working till 6PM. Jerry will stay overnight from 6PM through to 9AM the following morning and then repeat this shift pattern the following day.
Jerry will be rostered for the following shifts in ShiftCare
Day 1
- 09:00 AM to 02:30 PM - 24-hour Care Shift
- 02:30 PM to 03:30 PM - 24-hour Care Shift - Inactive Time
- 03:30 PM to 06:00 PM - 24-hour Care Shift
- 06:00 PM to 09:00 AM - no rostered shift recorded*
Day 2
- 09:00 AM to 02:30 PM - 24-hour Care Shift
- 02:30 PM to 03:30 PM - 24-hour Care Shift - Inactive Time
- 03:30 PM to 06:00 PM - 24-hour Care Shift
*If you wish to record this, we recommend you create and use a specific allowance for this scenario such as '24 hour care shift - overnight'. Map this allowance to Do not export to ensure it is only used in ShiftCare for rostering purposes.
Client Cancellations
A client cancelling a shift can have a few scenarios on how the affected employee is paid. The employee can either:
- Perform other work
- Cancel the shift with no replacement work
- Allocate make-up time
The impact on payroll depends on whether the employee should be paid for the cancelled shift. If offered other work or given make-up time, the employee is not entitled to be paid for the cancelled shift. However, the shift still needs to be retained in ShiftCare for billing purposes only (generally if the client cancelled without enough notice)
If the client has cancelled without notice, but the employee is offered other work or make-up time, the shift should still be retained for billing purposes.
Create a dummy employee and assign them the cancelled shift. ShiftCare will only export timesheets for employees that were synced from Pay Cat.
If the shift is cancelled and the employee is not offered alternative work, that shift should be retained against the employee it was previously rostered for. In doing so, the employee will be paid for the shift they were originally scheduled for without loss of pay.
Note if you leave a cancelled shift in the roster assigned to the original employee, make sure it does not overlap with another shift that the same employee worked. Overlapping shifts are not accepted in payroll, therefore you should adjust the cancelled shift accordingly by splitting it between the original employee and a dummy employee.
Excursions
Excursions have a special allowance called 'Excursions'. They will apply overtime in excess of 8 hours if the day is a weekday. If the day is a weekend or public holiday, the penalty rate for that day applies, but overtime in excess of 8 hours does not.
Additionally, if a shift with the excursion shift type crosses midnight, the rules will provide a sleepover allowance if the shift is a weekday but not a weekend.
Roster the worked part of the shift as 'Excursion' and add 'Excursion - Overnight' to represent the part that crosses midnight.
For multi-day excursions, please ensure there is more than a one-hour gap between days so the shifts don't conjoin and treat it as one big shift (with lots of overtime).
Example:
Jerry takes George on a 2-day excursion for Tuesday and Wednesday. Jerry is required to work from 9 AM to 7 PM, and then it is 'lights out' for George. Jerry will then have some downtime overnight between 7 PM on Tuesday and 7 AM on Wednesday. Jerry will then continue working till 6 PM on Wednesday.
Jerry will be rostered for the following shifts in ShiftCare
- TUE 09:00 AM to TUE 07:00 PM - Excursion
- TUE 07:00 PM to WED 05:30 AM - Excursion - Overnight
- WED 05:30 AM to WED 07:00 AM - LEAVE BLANK TO RESET THE DAY*
- WED 07:00 AM to THU 06:00 PM - Excursion
*If you still want to record this gap, we recommend creating and using a specific allowance for this scenario, such as 'Excursion - new day preparation'. Map this allowance to Do not export to ensure it is only used in ShiftCare for rostering purposes.
Weekend Work
Record any shift here as ordinary work. You do not need a particular shift type to apply for the weekend penalties. The SCHADS template will identify any shifts worked on weekends and pay these at the appropriate penalty or overtime rate.
Rest period after overtime
Leave this part blank, i.e. don’t record any timesheets. See the section on 'rest breaks after overtime' for more information.
On Call
The on-call shift represents an employee who is on stand-by and may be required to be called to work on a particular day.
This should be recorded as a shift of any length (e.g. 15 minutes) and use the allowance called 'On Call'. When imported into payroll, it will be imported as a 'unit' of 1 rather than a timesheet entry with a start and end time. The pay conditions will identify if the shift falls on a weekday, weekend or public holiday and pay this at the appropriate rate.
e.g. Jerry is required to be on call on 25 May. The roster manager creates a timesheet from 09:00 AM to 09:15 AM and adds in the shift notes that this represents being on call all day.
Do not add more than one on-call shift on a particular day. If you do, you will have more than one On-Call allowance on the same day.
Breaks
Where you record a break in Shiftcare, it will be interpreted as a break, not with the client, that should be treated as an unpaid meal break for payroll purposes. That is, the break will reduce how much the employee earns. If the employee has a break, that:
- Is a rest break or a tea break; or
- Is a break during overtime; or
- Is a break spent with the client
You should not record the break in Shiftcare to ensure the employee is still paid. These scenarios can still be captured as shift notes if you wish to record them.