Scheduled Breaks

Ensuring you are scheduling breaks appropriate with your award or agreement, and that staff know when the most appropriate break times are during their work day is important for everyone. With this new feature set your organization will be able to set up break templates, and easily add and update them to staff schedules. If your organization uses our Award Interpretation and Payroll you will be able to have these breaks automatically placed in the appropriate place on the schedule each time you click the validate roster as the award interpretation will return if a break entitlement is due based on the work day. Below is an overview of this new feature.

Organisations are required to ensure that staff are provided with mandatory breaks to meet their Fair Work obligations (https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employment-conditions/hours-of-work-breaks-and-rosters/breaks).

Care Vision functionality enables clear visibility on breaks assigned to staff during their workday, importantly these are scheduled as separate breaks, so they are not combined with shifts or travel time allocations. These breaks are tailored to your organisational needs and can easily be added/updated within the staff schedule.

Set up your scheduled break templates:

Set up break templates to make it faster and easier for your teams to add mandatory breaks into the staff's schedule.

Break Template needs a name, use an easily recognized name for your teams so they can pick the best option when selecting a template break i.e. if your award allows for a Tea Break or a Lunch Break use these terms in the template name.

Template Name - This refers to the name of the template that will be appearing in the list of scheduled break template when adding one to the staff

Break Name - The actual name of the break that will appear to the team member so again make sure it is recognizable to your team. This is also the name that is appearing in the mobile app when added under a staff.

Break Type - Options here are Paid Break, Unpaid Break or Standby. Note the following considerations when selecting:

Paid: This will be included the duration of the break to be billed to the client.

Example:
Start Time: 10:00 AM
End Time: 12:00 PM
Break Duration: 30 minutes
Expectations: Full two (2) hours of duration will be billed to the client, and full two (2) hours will be paid to the staff.

Unpaid: This will be excluded to amount to be paid to the staff.

Example:
Start Time: 10:00 AM
End Time: 12:00 PM
Break Duration: 30 minutes
Expectations: Full two (2) hours will be billed to the client, however only 1 and half hour will be paid to the staff.

Standby:

Example:
Start Time:
End Time:
Break Duration:
Expectations:

Break Details - This allows you to provide some more instruction or detail to the staff member for the break. I.e. if it is a break during a client booking you may have some rules or conditions to ensure everyone's safety to be followed.

Time - This is the default time used when you add this template break to a staff members day, you can still move it around on their day, but this time will be the default.

Duration in Minutes - This is the duration of the break that will be scheduled when you use this template.

What's the difference between the template break name and the break name?
You may have multiple templates for the same Break Name i.e. Morning Tea Break vs Midday Tea Break vs Afternoon Tea Break vs Sleepover Tea Break, which can all be the 'Tea Break' as per your award but they can be set up with different default times or conditions to make it easier for your team to add them to the schedule.

Add and Update Scheduled Breaks:

On the scheduling view you will see a plus icon under each staff members name.

From here you will be able to add a new break.

You can also select a template break to add to that staff members schedule.

Once the break is in view on the schedule you can move the break around on the day to the most suitable time.

Notice that the scheduled break is displaying as white block, this indicates that the scheduled break is not yet published.

You can click on the [i] icon to open the break details and edit the break details such as the duration, the start time (if you don't like to drag and drop) or the type of break etc.)

If you need to delete a break you can do so by clicking the coffee icon to open the break detail and then selecting to delete

DONT FORGET: For any break you schedule or change you ALWAYS need to hit PUBLISH on the scheduling area for your changes to take effect.

Published scheduled breaks will appear as solid purple block on the scheduling page.

Staff Visibility of their Scheduled Breaks on Mobile:

Staff will be able to see the break on their mobile application. It will appear in line with the schedule.

For Android:

For iOS:

Viewing Scheduled Breaks on Staff Calendar:

On the portal you will be able to see the break on the staff member's calendar. It will appear in line with the schedule.

Breaks Taken with Clients

From time-to-time breaks must or can be taken with a client. We have included the ability to indicate this on the client care plan items, as well as on Ad Hoc Bookings, this will allow your scheduling team to see bookings where the client has accepted that a staff member can or needs to take a break during their booking. This can help scheduling teams optimize the cost of the roster by placing paid breaks overlapping with the bookings that allow for the paid breaks.

You can identify a booking on the scheduling area which will allow for a paid break as it shows a coffee cup icon on the booking as well.