Scheduled Breaks
Ensuring your employees are taking breaks is essential to staying labor compliant and can lead to increased productivity for you and your team.
Being able to schedule paid and unpaid breaks directly will ensure you’ve got the right floor coverage at the right times. Admins have more customizations and can create custom break types. Once set, the breaks will appear on both the mobile and web app, acting as a visual cue of when your Employee should take their break.
Click here to learn more about the difference between Scheduled Breaks and Enforced Breaks.
As crucial as breaks are, it also isn't always a good idea to take a break. You'll want to cross-check your labor data and look at trends for when it would be an optimal time to schedule them. Ideally, this means not scheduling breaks during the busiest time of day, or when all hands are needed (like prep time!). Our intuitive system can point you in the right direction with our:
Labor Budget Tool
Optimal Labor Tool
⚠️ Admins can set up and create custom Break Types.
⚠️ Managers and Assistant Managers can add breaks to the Schedule. They will require permission: "Can manage schedules".
⚠️ Scheduled breaks do not sync or surface on integrated POSs.
⚠️ If a Scheduled Break is added while Auto-breaks is enabled, 7shifts will only deduct break time/labor costs once.
SKIP AHEAD TO:
Setup Breaks
Add a Scheduled Break to a shift
Add A Scheduled Break to a template
View Scheduled Breaks
Print Scheduled Breaks
Frequently Asked Questions
Setup Breaks
1. Log in to the web app as an Admin.
2. Hover over the navigation bar > select Settings > Company Settings.
3. Select the Labor & Compliance tab.
4. Head to the section Breaks. Three commonly used breaks will be available by default: 30 minutes Unpaid Meal break, 10 minutes Paid Rest Break, and 15 minutes Paid Rest Break.
5. To add a custom break: click the + Add more scheduling breaks > enter in your break details (type, name, length) > hit Save.
6.To edit a break: click the pencil icon .
7.To delete a break: click on the ellipsis icon > select Delete.
8. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save!
When you're done setting up your breaks, these will appear as default options for your scheduling managers.
Add a Scheduled Break to a shift
1. Log in as an Admin or Manager/Assistant Manager with permissions.
2. Click on the Schedules tab.
3. Create a new shift or click on an existing shift.
4. Click + Add break:
5. Select a custom break from the drop-down, and set a start time (optional).
⚠️ If a break does not have a start time, it will not appear on the day view schedule
6. Click + Add break to add as many breaks as you'd like:
7. When you're ready, click Save!
Add a Scheduled Break to a template
- Login as an Admin or Manager with permissions.
- In the left navigation bar, head to Schedule > click on the Copy icon
> select Manage Templates:
- Select an existing template, or click + Add template to create a new one.
-
Click on a shift that you would like to add a scheduled break:
If... Then...
Updating an existing template
Click on a shift
Adding a new template
Click + Add shift > add your shift details -
Select a custom break from the drop-down, and set a start time (optional).
⚠️ Scheduled Breaks are not enforced breaks. Leaving the Start time blank may imply that your Employees can take them at their discretion.
⚠️ If a break does not have a start time, it will not appear on the day view schedule -
(optional) Click + Add break to add as many breaks as you'd like, and select the days of the week you would like to apply this to.
⚠️Only Admins will have the option to select Manage Breaks.
- Hit Create to complete these changes.
- Done! Scheduled breaks can be identified on the template by the coffee icons, alongside the amount of scheduled breaks for that shift:
View Scheduled Breaks
Scheduled breaks will be visible on...
The Schedules page > Day View. Hover over the shift to view the break type and duration!
- If the shift is edited to be reduced (by dragging the shift block), the Scheduled Break will automatically remove itself if it no longer falls within the shift's start/end times.
- If a Scheduled Break does not have a start time, it will not appear on the Day-view schedule.
Shift Trades from More > Shift Pool > Trade Requests. Breaks will be traded with the requested shift. You can click on Shift Details to view them:
⚠️ Adding, editing, and deleting Scheduled Breaks is only possible on the web app.
Managers and Employees can view Schedules breaks from the Schedules page > by clicking on Shift Details:
- Managers can view Schedules Breaks for the Employees with which they're assigned to the same Department
- Employees can view their other coworker's Scheduled Breaks.
Print Scheduled Breaks
1. Login to the web app > head to the Schedules tab.
2. Select Day view:
3. Click on the Tools icon > Print.
4. Checkmark Breaks:
5. Click Print.
FAQs
Q: I'm integrated with a POS, and have enabled Schedule enforcement. Will the Scheduled Breaks surface on my POS?
A: At this time, Scheduled Breaks do not sync to an integrated POS.