Work Categories are used to accommodate unique work situations during an assigned Shift where the employee is not performing their normally assigned job responsibilities. These situations can include scenarios where the employee is still working during the Shift, such as attending training or a convention, or when they are not working, like jury duty or bereavement.
Work Categories are created for these unique work situations and applied to the assigned Shifts during which they take place. They are configured to account for any impacts the temporary change in the employee's responsibilities will have on the Shift's budget, and if necessary, apply the appropriate Earning Code (other than Regular) for the hours recorded with this Shift.
In the scenario where an employee is attending a two-day convention during their assigned Shifts on Monday and Tuesday, a Work Category for "Convention" can be set up and assigned to these Shifts. Since the employee will not be onsite, the 'Convention' Work Category can be set up to exclude these Shifts from the budget, effectively removing them from the headcount calculation. If needed, the Work Category can also apply an Earning Code for 'Convention' to these Shifts as well.
Work Categories first need to be configured on the company-level before they can be applied toward a Shift. To configure and manage Work Categories, navigate to the Scheduling section within the Company tab and select the Work Categories Card.
The Work Categories Card will display existing Work Categories that can be viewed, edited and deleted if needed. To create a new Work Category, click the blue button labeled "+ New Work Category".
When setting up a new Work Category, the setup will depend on whether the event occurring during the Shift requires the employee to work or not.
- "Worked" Work Categories - If the employee will still be working during their assigned Shift, but not within their designated Shift where budget requirements may be enforced, it will prompt for the following:
- Code - Select or input a unique code that best identifies the Work Category.
- Description - If desired, provide a brief description applicable to the Work Category.
- Employee is... - This should be set to "Working" to indicate the employee will still be working during the Shift.
- Earning Code - Choose the appropriate Earning Code to reflect how the work will be recorded.
- Count towards budget? - Indicate whether the hours worked under this Work Category should be included in the shift's budget. Leave this box unchecked if the employee should be removed from the Shift's budget when this Work Category is assigned.
- "Non-Worked" Work Categories - If the employee will not be working during their assigned Shift, but still needs to be accounted for in terms of pay or time off, it will prompt for the following:
Please note that "Non-Worked" Work Categories are aimed more for pre-planned circumstances. For scenarios where the employees is "calling out" on short notice from their assigned Shift, typically within a 24 hours time frame, "Callouts" are used to track this, not Work Categories. Callouts are also tracked per employee for HR purposes. For more information on Callouts, please refer to Empeon's article Schedule Callouts.- Code - Select or input a unique code that best identifies the Work Category.
- Description - If desired, provide a brief description applicable to the Work Category.
- Employee is... - Set this to "Off" to indicate the employee will not be working during the Shift.
- Paid/Unpaid - Indicate whether this event should be paid or unpaid.
- Earning Code - If the Work Category is set to Paid, select the appropriate Earning Code.
Be sure to click "Save" after configuring the Work Category. To learn more about how to apply Work Categories to assigned Shifts, please refer to Empeon's article Assigning Work Categories.