Working hours and break tracking

How it works

1. The employee punches in, starts and ends breaks, and punches out on the web, the app or a kiosk. The day moves from not in to in, on break, back to in, then out.
2. A punch that does not fit is refused with a plain message, such as 'You are on a break. End the break before punching out.'
3. Gross hours run from each in to its out. Punched breaks come off to give effective hours; with no break punched, the shift's break comes off once more than a half day is worked in one stretch.
4. Effective hours decide the day: the full-day hours or more is present, the half-day hours or more is a half day, and anything less is absent.
5. While the day is open, the web today card and the live board show hours so far, with live worked and break timers.
6. HR opens the day log for any employee and range up to 92 days: in, break, out, gross, breaks, effective hours, late by and status with the reason, with a CSV download.
7. HR can record a punch for an employee, including a back-dated one, or void a wrong punch.

What you can set

• Full-day and half-day hours: 8 and 4 by default, or the shift's own hours.
• Breaks: unpaid, or paid up to the shift's break allowance, set in the attendance rules.
• Break allowance per shift, for example 60 minutes on the seeded General shift and 30 minutes on the Morning, Evening and Night shifts.
• No punch-out: half day until corrected, absent, or hours counted to the shift end.
• Grace before shift end: with rules on, a day short of the full-day hours by no more than this grace still counts as a full day.
• Day log range: up to 92 days, with CSV download.

Why effective hours, not just in and out

Two people can both be in the building from 9 am to 6 pm and still work different hours. One takes the standard lunch; the other takes three long breaks. When breaks are punched, ZeniaHR takes off the actual break time instead of the shift's fixed break, and never both. That keeps the day fair for the person who takes a short lunch and honest for the person who does not. Days with breaks over the allowance also show up in attendance analytics for each department.

Worked example: two days on the General shift in Noida

Aman Verma, a design associate in Noida, works the General shift, 9 am to 6 pm with a 60-minute break allowance and 8 full-day hours. On Monday he punches in at 9:02 am and out at 6:05 pm without punching a break. Gross time is 9 hours 3 minutes; the 60-minute shift break comes off, leaving 8 hours 3 minutes, which is a full day.

On Tuesday he punches in at 9 am, takes a break from 1:10 pm to 2:30 pm and punches out at 6 pm. Gross time is 9 hours and the punched break is 80 minutes, so effective time is 7 hours 40 minutes. The company's rules are on with 10 minutes of grace before shift end, which still leaves him short of 8 hours, so Tuesday is a half day, and his break shows as 20 minutes over the allowance. If the company paid breaks up to the allowance, 60 of the 80 minutes would count as work, giving 8 hours 40 minutes and a full day.

Setting hours that match your policy

The hours you set decide more half days than the late rules ever will, so settle them with the people who run the shifts before you switch the rules on. Plant heads and department managers know where the real breaks happen and how long a shift handover takes.

• Set full-day hours to the effective hours you expect, not the length of the shift window.
• Decide whether breaks are paid before switching the rules on, and write it into the HR policy.
• Under the OSH Code, ordinary daily work is capped at eight hours; read the working hours rules before setting long shifts.
• Use the day log, not a photo of the machine screen, when an employee questions a half day.

Frequently asked questions