Shift Lock prevents employees from clocking in early and out late. It's integrated with our scheduling system and is ideal when your employees have set schedules. We don't recommend Shift Lock for employees with flexible start times because Shift Lock is based on set in/out times and not durations. More on this below under the section, What Shift Lock Is Not. But for now...
What We'll Cover
What Shift Lock Is
Your employees have set schedules, and you want them to work those schedules. You don't want them clocking in early and out late. These extra minutes amount to hours each month that you didn't factor into your job budgets; sometimes, the extra time becomes overtime hours. Shift Lock locks employees' time cards to their schedules to keep your job budgets on track and avoid overtime.
We'll discuss how Shift Lock prevents overtime in an unexpected way in a minute.
Enabling Shift Lock and Its Different Settings
Go to My Account > Schedule Settings > Enable Shift Lock Feature. > Enabled. Shift Lock will only apply to newly created schedules in the Schedule Manager (the settings will not apply to existing schedules) when enabled.
Shift Lock can lock employees' time cards to their schedule with 4 optional settings.
To prevent early clock-in
To prevent late clock-in
To prevent early clock-out
To prevent late clock-out
Most companies use the first setting to prevent early clock-ins, and some also use the last setting to prevent late clock-outs. Your settings can range from 1 to 60 minutes.
But what does that mean?
Preventing Early Clock-Ins
Let's say you have 8 am - 5 pm schedules, and employees routinely clock in 15 minutes early. Using the first rule, Default Shift Lock for Early Clock In, check the box and set it to 15 minutes. The rule will catch all employees clocking in early up to 15 minutes and lock their time cards to 8 am. Employees clocking in between 7:45 and 7:59 am will get shift locked to 8 am.
If your employee clocks in more than 15 minutes early, the system will record the actual time and not lock the time card. However, we'll flag that event as a "missed shift lock" for your review. This same rule applies to late clock-outs.
You can prevent early clock-ins up to 60 minutes.
Preventing Late Clock-Outs
Late clock-outs can also torpedo your budgets but only use this setting if the start time is fixed. The late clock-out setting isn't ideal for employees who have flexible start times. Again, more about that later.
You can prevent late clock-outs up to 60 minutes.
What Do You Do If You Already Have Schedules?
As mentioned, if Shift Lock is not enabled and you already have existing schedules, the Shift Lock settings will not apply to these schedules - but all isn't hopeless. You can go into Schedule Manager to "edit this and all future shifts" to enable Shift Lock for all future occurrences.
**A word of caution: when you want to edit an existing schedule to add Shift Lock, you'll see the option as shown below. The box "Shift Lock Enabled for this schedule" is checked, which only means you can add Shift Lock, not that Shift Lock is applied. Please note in the image below that none of the 4 settings boxes are checked. This is where you apply the settings and set the minutes to the schedule.
Editing/Disabling Shift Lock for Specific Schedules
All newly created schedules will have the master Shift Lock settings applied, but you can edit Shift Lock values in specific schedules. Perhaps you have some shifts with flexible start and end times but still want to receive no-show alerts.
Open the shift in Schedule Manager, "edit this and all future shifts," uncheck the Shift Lock settings, and save. Or you may want to increase/reduce the minutes for the settings of that particular schedule. Follow the same steps and edit the values.
That's it. 😉
What Your Employees Experience with Shift Lock
The system warns employees if they clock in early/late to a shift-locked schedule. The images below are what an employee sees on the app when they clock in early and clock out late to a schedule.
Early Clock-In
This image tells the employee their time card will be adjusted to the scheduled start time of 5:30 am and not to start working until then.
The employee clicks OK.
The next screen on the app shows the employee that the shift starts in 15 minutes. Your employee does not have to do anything else. They should lock their phone, grab a coffee, and start working in 15 minutes. 🍵
Late Clock-Out
Your employees will see the message below when they clock out late. Their time card will be adjusted to the scheduled end time. They press OK and are off the clock.
Employees who call to clock in and out will hear a message.
Shift Lock clock-in message: “You have clocked into a shift lock schedule that was set by your Supervisor. Your clock-in time will automatically be adjusted to {scheduled IN time}; you should not start work until this time. Thank you.”
Shift Lock clock-out message: “You have clocked out of a shift lock schedule that was set by your Supervisor. Your clock-out time will automatically be adjusted to {scheduled OUT time); you have worked xx:xx hours/minutes. Thank you.”
Where Do You See Shift Lock on the Time Cards?
Go to Payroll Functions, Edit Time Cards. The time card will be flagged if an employee clocks in or out beyond your Shift Lock settings. Both Dennis and Dan are flagged with a
This indicates a missed Shift Lock. The scheduled start time was 5 pm, but Dennis clocked in at 4:21 pm, more than 30 minutes early. Review and edit, if necessary, and check the box for "Shift Lock Reviewed." Then save.
Then, you will see that the flag has changed to SL-R to indicate that the Shift Lock was reviewed.
The next time card with a clock-in time of 4:45 pm shows a blue SL, indicating a shift lock occurred. Dennis clocked in at 4:28 pm for a 4:45 pm shift. This is within the 30-minute shift lock window, so we informed Dennis at clock-in not to start working until 4:45 pm. This is the magic. 😊
Earlier, I mentioned that early clock-ins can lead to overtime in an unexpected way. Let's cover that now.
Early Clock-ins Lead to Unplanned Overtime
Midnight schedules can be problematic. Let's talk about a 12 am to 8 am schedule. An early clock-in to a midnight schedule counts the time to the day before, but why does that matter?
A couple of reasons.
Let's say your payroll runs from Monday to Sunday, and you have Monday 12 am - 8 am schedules. Your employee clocks into their Monday morning schedule early at 11:55 pm Sunday. These 8+ hours are attributed to Sunday, the last day of the pay period, instead of Monday. You didn't plan for Sunday hours to be tacked onto the workweek, which can lead to unplanned weekly overtime.
You have a similar scenario with midnight schedules. An employee clocks in at 12:01 am one day and clocks out at 8:00 am. No problem, right? But then the eager beaver employee shows up for work early that night and clocks in at 11:55 pm and works until 8 am. Those hours count on the day of clock-in, and you have two shifts totaling 16+ hours on one day. If you're a California business, you're paying daily overtime of 1.5x for every hour after 8, up to 12, and double time for hours over 12 in a day.
Savvy employees can easily play this game to trigger overtime pay. Fortunately, Shift Lock solves this problem.
What Shift Lock Is Not
Shift Lock is great for preventing early clock-ins and late clock-outs that lead to wonky budgets and unplanned overtime, but it's necessary to understand what it doesn't do.
For example, you have part-time employees who work in the evenings, but because they come in after their full-time jobs, you're not overly concerned when they start. However, you do budget and monitor the durations worked at each job site for job costing. You have 2-hour cleans that you don't want to become 3-hour cleans. Shift Lock does not lock durations.
You may schedule an employee's first clean from 6 pm to 8 pm because it's a 2-hour clean, but it's fine with you if they clock in later. You're just grateful to have employees willing to work. However, making a 2-hour schedule and using Shift Lock does not guarantee a 2-hour time card.
I'll give an example with a 15-minute Shift Lock rule applied to early clock-ins and late clock-outs.
The rule is saying, "This employee is scheduled from 6-8 pm, and if they clock in between 5:45 pm-5:59 pm, lock their time card to 6 pm, and if they clock out between 8:01-8:15 pm, lock their time card to 8 pm."
The rule is not saying, "This is a 2-hour clean, so lock their time card to 2 hours if they work 3 hours."
If your employee arrives later, say 6:30 pm, and works until 9:30 pm, the time card will be 6:30 pm-9:30 pm.
Additionally, if your employee clocks in at 6:30 pm and out at 8:15 pm, their time card locks to 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm, shorting your employee on time.
Just remember: the magic of Shift Lock is based on scheduled start and end times, not durations. Don't use it when these times are flexible.
Caution: Consider best business practices. We inform employees at clock in/out of the time card adjustments, but check with your legal adviser.
Whoo! That was a long article, but hopefully, it was ultra-clear.
For help on other topics, check out our Help Center and be sure to bookmark it! 😎
If you want to ensure that your employees are always at the job site when clocking in, take a peek at our new platform, Chronotek Pro.
