Night shift attendance

How it works

1. HR marks the shift as a night shift, such as the seeded Night shift from 10 pm to 6 am, and rosters people on it.
2. The worker punches in before midnight. Punches after midnight, including breaks and the punch-out, are filed to the shift's start date while that day is open.
3. A punch counts as part of yesterday's shift up to six hours after the shift ends. After that, it starts a new day.
4. Lateness is measured from the 10 pm start plus grace, and early exits from the 6 am end minus grace.
5. The missed punch-out alert waits until 60 minutes after the shift ends the next morning, and the 11:30 pm absent alert leaves out shifts that run past midnight.
6. On the live board, a night shift from yesterday that is still running shows as working, not as a missed punch-out.

What you can set

• Night shift flag on the shift.
• Shift times, such as 10 pm to 6 am, and a break allowance, such as 30 minutes.
• Full-day and half-day hours for the night shift.
• Grace in and grace out for the shift, or the policy grace.
• Breaks unpaid, or paid up to the shift allowance, set in the attendance rules.
• Weekly off pattern for the night team.
• Overtime counted after the shift end, which for a night shift falls on the next morning.

Why night shifts need their own handling

Plants, hospitals, BPOs, hotels and security teams all run nights. If a system files the punch-in on Tuesday and the punch-out on Wednesday, Tuesday shows a missing punch-out, Wednesday shows a stray punch, and both turn into corrections. Payroll may then pay two half days for one full night. Filing the whole shift to its start date keeps the night as one day, so late marks, overtime and payable days come out right the first time.

Worked example: a Night shift at a Faridabad plant

Suresh Yadav works the Night shift at a Faridabad forging plant, 10 pm to 6 am with a 30-minute break allowance and 8 full-day hours. On Tuesday he punches in at 9:56 pm, starts a break at 2 am, ends it at 2:40 am and punches out at 6:05 am on Wednesday. All four punches are filed to Tuesday. His gross time is 8 hours 9 minutes, and his effective time after the 40-minute break is 7 hours 29 minutes.

Under his company's rules breaks are unpaid, so even with 10 minutes of grace before shift end he is short of 8 hours, and Tuesday counts as a half day with a break 10 minutes over the allowance. When the plant switches breaks to paid up to the allowance, 30 of the 40 minutes count as work, giving 7 hours 59 minutes plus the grace, and the same night becomes a full day. HR makes the change before the month is finalized.

Rostering people on nights

Night work brings its own rules and risks, so plan the roster with the law and the people in mind. Under the OSH Code women may work night shifts with their consent and the safety conditions the government sets; read the rules for women on night shifts before rostering them.

• Take each woman employee's written consent before rostering her on nights, and keep it with her documents.
• Rotate people off nights with a rotation template rather than keeping one team on nights for months.
• Give the night team its own weekly off pattern, so rest days follow the shift and not the office calendar.
• Use the night shift worker rights page to brief new joiners on what to expect.

Frequently asked questions