Introduction
In some jurisdictions, employees are entitled to a 10-minute paid rest period for every four hours worked.
If the employer does not permit a rest period, or the employee does not receive the full 10-minute rest period, the employer is required to pay the employee one hour of pay at the employee's regular rate of pay.
The missed rest break penalty automatically identifies when a rest break has been missed or cut short, and applies the extra one hour of pay to the relevant timecard.
A maximum of one missed rest break penalty is applied per workday, even if multiple rest breaks are missed/cut short.
Prerequisite
Administrator access
Navigation
Settings > Compliance > Labor rules> Breaks
Toggle the rule on and choose the rule that applies to your Company.
Rule options:
Every full 4 hours:
Employees get one 10-minute paid break for every full 4 hours on shift. Both paid and unpaid time count toward the 4 hours.
Every 4 hours of more than half
Employees get one 10-minute paid break for every 4 hours worked. Only time worked (i.e. paid time) counts towards the 4 hours.
If more than 2 hours are left after that, the employee is entitled to one more break. Shifts under 3½ hours don’t get a rest break.
For example:
0-3.5 hours: No breaks
3.5-6 hours: 1 rest break
6-10 hours: 2 rest breaks
10-14 hours: 3 rest breaks
14-18 hours: 4 rest breaks
18-22 hours: 5 rest breaks
The penalty applies if the employee completely misses the break or takes less than the required minimum time (10 minutes).
The paid or unpaid breaks configured at the top of the screen have no bearing on this rule. The missed rest break penalty is always calculated according to this rule's own logic.
This rule only applies to missed rest breaks. For missed meal breaks, please enable the missed meal break compliance rule.