Rest breaks

Configure a rest break policy to have breaks automatically applied to your shifts.

Amelia Andrews avatar
Written by Amelia Andrews
Updated over a week ago

A rest break is a period of non-working time during a shift. It can be paid or unpaid.

You can set a rest break manually when adding or editing a shift. After many shifts this can be tedious, and it's easy to forget to set one. Instead, you can configure a rest break policy and Rotaready will automatically apply the correct rest break to every shift.

Your rest break policy encompasses the different types of rest breaks in your organisation and whether or not they should be paid. Each rest break has a set of associated rules; if a shift matches a rule, the rest break is applied automatically. Rules are used to target eligible shifts based on certain criteria, such as:

  • The employee working the shift, according to their staff group or their age

  • Shift start time or end time

  • Shift duration

  • The site/department in which the shift is scheduled

⚡️ When you add or edit a shift, Rotaready evaluates each of your rest breaks and their rules in order. It's possible that a shift might match several rules, but the first matching rule always wins, and so its associated rest break is applied. With this in mind, you should order your rules appropriately.

An example rest break policy

Let's clarify with an example: Employees working a shift 8 hours or longer are eligible for a 30 minute paid break. Anyone working a shorter shift is only eligible for a 15 minute break.

In this example, there are two rules. Both target shifts based on their duration.

  1. Shifts greater than or equal to 8 hours in duration = 30 mins break

  2. Shifts less than 8 hours in duration = 15 mins break

The order of our rules doesn't matter in this case, because it would be impossible for a shift to match both rules.

Managing your rest break policy

  1. Click Settings 

  2. Click Rest breaks

You can create a new rest break by giving it a name and choosing whether or not it's paid. It's best to create organisation-wide rest breaks unless you have a specific need for a break to only apply within certain sites/departments.

You can then add as many rules as you like. Don't forget that rules are evaluated against shifts in ascending order, so be sure to use the up & down arrows to re-order them accordingly.

Manually setting a break on a shift

It's easy to manually set a break on a shift. It's the same as overriding an automatically applied rest break. Just click on a shift within the Rota Editor and look for the break settings. 

Just bear in mind that whenever you change the assigned employee, date or start/finish time of a shift, the rest break policy will be re-evaluated and the matching rest break will be automatically applied.

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