Labor categories form

This form can be opened from the Settings group or by selecting FORM | OTHER FORMS | LABOR CATEGORIES from the menu.

When the form opens you will notice a tab across the top for each labor category that has been defined. Use the tabs to easily identify and move between the labor categories. If you have more than one labor category defined, the status line, located at the bottom of each form, tells you how many employees have been assigned to that labor category.

Purpose of the Labor categories form

The Labor categories form tells ESP if there are local labor regulations governing your employees that need to be considered when generating the schedule. When set up properly these forms will help ensure that your employees are not scheduled in violation of local labor regulations.

These charts give you a great deal of flexibility but you must avoid setting up restrictions that don't actually apply to your area or you will find yourself with more unscheduled shifts each week and unnecessary editing work to do.

Form fields

Access to the information on this form restricted under some configurations.

Each form is divided into two sections:

1. Name and description
2. Entries

Name and description

Enter a name for the Labor category in the box at the top of this section, which will also appear on the form's tab at the top of the screen. Use the larger box below the name to enter a detailed description about the labor category; this description can help you identify the employees who should be assigned to this labor category.

Entries

The entries area is divided into three tabbed screens:

1. Day definitions
2. Assignment limits
3. Additional

Day definitions

The Day definitions screen is where you tell ESP how to treat each day of the week when generating the schedule. Using check boxes, define which days are to be considered weekdays, which days are to be considered school days, and how to count Holiday days.

There are two sections on this screen:

1. The weekday definition is used to count how many weekday and weekend day shifts a person is assigned.
2. The school days definition is used by ESP to determine the days that should have school restrictions applied to them.

Weekdays

Check the box beside each day that you consider a week day. Traditionally, Monday to Friday are considered weekdays and Saturday and Sunday are considered weekend days; however, you may change this if you wish. All days left unchecked will be considered weekend days.

This section also controls how ESP counts closing shifts. ESP considers a closing shift on the night before a weekend day as a weekend close and a closing shift on the night before a week day as a week day close. If you define your weekdays as Monday through Friday, a Friday closing shift would be counted as a weekend close and a Sunday closing shift would be counted as a week day close.

This area also provides three options to define how ESP schedules a day that falls on a holiday. You can define a shift on a holiday as: a weekend shift; a weekday shift; or as the actual day that the holiday falls on.

School days

Under the School days section, check the days that ESP should consider as school days for this labor category. The sample form above is for an adult labor category and none of the days are checked since adults do not normally have restrictions associated with school days. For students, design a separate labor category, with Day definitions set up similar to the one shown below:

The main difference between the two forms is that the one for students has school days defined as Monday through Friday.

The Restrictions also apply the night before starting at checkbox allows you to specify restrictions that apply the night before a school day and the time that the restrictions begin. For example, if you specify that restrictions apply at 4:00 PM and defined school days as Monday to Friday, the restrictions would apply to Sunday through Thursday evenings. Although Sunday is not defined as a school day, in many jurisdictions minors are restricted from working late or long shifts on the night before a school day. As noted above these restrictions would not apply to Friday evening because the next day, Saturday, is not defined as a school day.

Assignment limits

The Assignment limits screen is used to define limits and restrictions that apply to shifts assigned to employees in this labor category. These limits are found on both the labor category forms and each employee's individual information form. When there is a conflict between the two, the lower limit will always apply.

When you open this screen you will notice that it has been divided into two tabbed screens: one called Regular and one called Alternate. This allows you to set different limits on the two types of availability that you can define for each employee. This is particularly useful for students who typically have more restrictions imposed during the school year than they do during the summer and extended school breaks. Generally you set up limits under the Regular tab that apply during the school year and limits under the Alternate tab that would apply during summer and other extended school breaks.

The Assignment limits screens are divided into three sections:

1. Hour and Shift limits
2. Standard assignment restrictions
3. School night assignment restrictions

Hour and shift limits

The Maximum hours field tells ESP the maximum number of hours an employee in this labor category is permitted to work per schedule week. The Maximum hours entered will be treated as an inviolate rule. No one will ever be scheduled more than the maximum specified here, even if the maximum is higher in their own personal profile.

You should always set this to the highest value permissible by law or the highest that any employee assigned to this category will work. Setting this number too low will lead to unscheduled shifts and unnecessary editing work. Setting the Maximum hours to 48 (as shown in the example above) will allow some flexibility for the manager in assigning employees. It also allows room for breaks, which may be counted as part of the total weekly hours. If you must restrict the number of hours an individual employee may work, enter the lower number on the employee's individual information screen.

The top row of the Shift limits area is labeled Shifts to indicate the maximum number of shifts allowed in each category: weekday, weekend, total, and in-a-row. ESP will never exceed these limits so be reasonable in your entries. Remember that you can always set lower limits for individual employees to ensure their needs are met.

The bottom row specifies how many of each type of shift is allowed to be a Close shift. In many areas employees are promised that the number of late night or close shifts they work will be limited each week. If this applies to you then define that in this row. If you have not made any promises on the number of late night, or close, shifts your employees work then enter the same number on the bottom row as the top row.

When entering the Close shifts entries, remember that the number of Close shifts is a subset of the total number of Shifts; it must be equal to, or less than, the corresponding entry in the Shifts row.

Standard assignment restrictions

The fields in the Standard assignment restrictions section apply to non-school day shifts.

Enter the Earliest and Latest times that employees in this labor category are permitted to work when it is not a school day. If there is no law dictating an earliest or latest time then set these both to NONE as shown in the example above. Remember, the times you fill in here will apply to any employee in this labor category; they will not be scheduled earlier or later than the times you enter even if they are available.

Enter the Shortest and Longest shift length permitted by law, if applicable. If there is no maximum by law, set the longest shift allowed to longest shift length that you would reasonably use. Remember to include the break in the shift length; for example, if your employees are entitled to a 30-minute unpaid break and you want them to receive eight hours of paid work, then their shift would have to be 8.5 hours long. In this case, the longest shift length should be set to 8.5 hours.

The Required spacing field specifies how many non-work hours are required between two shifts. For example, if you enter 10 hours in this field, and an employee works until midnight one day, the earliest they would be scheduled the next day is 10:00 AM

School night assignment restrictions

Some jurisdictions have different shift restrictions that apply to students on school nights. Usually these restrictions specify that on school days students must finish work earlier and/or work shorter shift lengths than on non-school days. If this applies to your employees then check the box for Enable school night restrictions and enter the restrictions that would apply to these employees on school nights. ESP will then apply the standard limits to non-school day shifts and these school night restrictions to any school day shifts as defined in the Day definitions section.

Limits for students/minors

The limits entries for a minor or student labor category could be designed similarly to the one shown below.

In the above example, the Maximum hours has been set to 28 hours per week. Shift limits specify a maximum of 5 weekday and 2 weekend shifts and closes. No more than a total of 5 shifts or closes will be scheduled, and no more than 5 shifts or closes in a row (including shifts from previous weeks) will be assigned.

In the Standard assignment restrictions section we have limited the latest an employee may work to 12:00 AM (midnight). The earliest an employee may work has been set to NONE meaning no restriction, while the longest shift length allowed is 8 hours.

Under the School night restrictions section, the limits are stricter. The latest an employee in this labor category may work on school nights is 10:00 PM and the longest shift length allowed on school nights is 4 hours.

Additional

This section is used to specify additional preferences and restrictions that apply in a limited number of jurisdictions. Most locations will leave this screen blank as it is used to tell ESP preferences and restrictions that apply in a limited number of areas. Be careful that you don't set up restrictions that don't actually apply to your employees as it will lead to additional unscheduled shifts and unnecessary editing work for you each week.

This screen is divided into four sections:

1. Select rules you wish to enforce
2. Vacation pay adjustment
3. Split shifts
4. Automatic labor category updates

Select rules you wish to enforce

Only check the box beside the rules that you want to enforce due to labor restrictions in your area. If a particular entry does not apply, leave it blank:

• Limit maximum hours of work in a 24 hour period to: In some areas employees are not allowed to work more than a certain number of hours in any continuous 24-hour period. If you have such a restriction, specify the number of hours here.
• Ensure employee works __ primary site shifts every __ weeks: For multi-location scheduling; if you require that employees work in the home location a certain number of times per schedule week, enter the requirement here.
• Minimum weekly rest period (hours): In some areas each employee must be given a fixed number of consecutive hours off every week regardless of how many shifts they have. For example, if you enter 32 here, then ESP will ensure that all employees in this labor category have at least one period of 32 consecutive hours each week where they are not scheduled to work.
  Using this option significantly slows down generating the schedule.

Vacation pay adjustment

If you pay your employees a fixed percentage of their wages as vacation pay, enter the amount here. Since the vacation pay adjustment is calculated based on labor category, you may assign different amounts to each labor category of employee.

The Vacation pay adjustment is included when calculating your labor costs for the week. If you do not have paid vacations, or if your paid vacations are not calculated as part of your labor cost, leave this field blank.

Split shifts

A split shift refers to the practice of having an employee work a shift, then have some time off, and come back to work another shift in the same day. For example someone might come in to work in the morning and work for 3-4 hours, then come back to work over dinner for another 3-4 hours. That would be a split shift.

If you permit split shifts then you must first check the Allow split shifts box. Next you specify what the minimum number of hours there must be between the two shifts, and then the maximum number of hours. For example you might require that when a split shift occurs, there must be at least 3 hours before the second shift can start, but a maximum of 6 hours.

The option Allow shifts to connect between departments is referring to multi-department locations only. This option allows you to tell ESP that an employee can work a shift at both departments in the same day provided they are NOT split.

Automatic labor category updates

If you wish, you can have ESP automatically update employees' labor category when they reach a particular age. For example you might wish to automatically have minors under the age of 18, updated the adult labor category when they reach the age of 18.

If you select this option then every time you click on Start a new schedule from the home page, ESP will scan the employees and where appropriate update the labor category to the new category if they have reached the age specified. The employee will only be updated if they are qualified for the new labor category for the entire scheduling week.

Example: Tom is aged 17 but will turn 18 on Tuesday. This means he will change from being a minor to an adult. But since the schedule starts on Monday he will still be a minor for one day on this schedule. Therefore, Tom will NOT be updated this week. The rules for minors will still apply to his entire schedule. However, next week Tom will be an adult for the entire schedule so his labor category will be updated as soon as you start the next schedule. This action will also be recorded in the Log on the Home form's Summary screen.

Automatic updates will only be used for labor categories that have this option selected. If the option is not selected then employees that belong to this labor category will not be updated automatically.

Adding or deleting Labor categories

To add a new labor category, click on the Add labor category option on the toolbar. A dialogue box will open, as shown below.

Select the existing Labor Category form that you want to use as a template for the new category. Using an existing labor category as a template speeds the entry of a new category, since you only need to change certain values. When creating a labor category, a new break form is also created using the template values. Once you have finished designing the labor category, check the new corresponding break form for changes.

To delete a labor category that is no longer needed, click on the Delete labor category button on the toolbar.

When you select this option, if there is no one assigned to the labor category a confirmation box opens. Select YES to remove the labor category or NO to cancel the request and return to the form. If, however, there are employees assigned to the labor category a box opens telling you the number of people assigned to it and noting that they must be reassigned to a different category before you can remove this category. Either select a different category for all the employees to be assigned to and click OK or, click CANCEL to close this box and return to the labor category form.

Don’t set up excessive or unnecessary restrictions on your employees because that will only lead to unnecessary unscheduled shifts and more editing for you.