News & updates

Using the Bradford Factor to measure absenteeism

Many businesses rely on the Bradford Factor to identify the patterns of staff member's absenteeism, and now we've built it directly into the sick leave report. In theory, the Bradford Factor identifies short and frequent unplanned absences, as they are thought to be more disruptive than longer absences. To ensure the Bradford Factor is accurate and features on the reports then make sure you record sick leave taken by following these steps.

Run reports on your staff's sick leave

It's now easier than ever to track each staff member's sick leave allowance and sick days they've taken. To get started, you should enter your staff's sick allowance from inside their profile. You can access their profile from the rota overview or from the staff screen by clicking on their name. Inside their profile you can enter their Sick Allowance in days per annum.

When staff take sick leave this can be recorded under leave, by creating a "Sick" entry. To do this click "Add a new leave entry", fill out the form making sure that in the Description field you enter the word "Sick". This forces the Findmyshift to calculate these days as Sick Leave when generating your reports.

Add your staff's birthdays to the rota

Never forget your staff's birthdays again because now you can have them highlighted on your staff rota. Simply fill out the Date of Birth field on your Staff's Profile and Findmyshift will automatically display their birthday on the staff rota. Staff birthdays will only be shown to managers for privacy reasons, but you can still tell the rest of your team by adding a comment to the rota or by posting a message on the notice board.

Different pay rates for days, staff and duties

Sometimes certain days, duties or shifts can attract different pay rates. All these pay rate exceptions can now be calculated automatically by Findmyshift once entered into the system. These entries are called Rate Exceptions and can be added globally (to all staff at once) or added individually to specific staff members. Global rate exceptions become particularly useful when it's required to pay all staff double time on Sundays, or time and a half on after 7pm. Specific staff entries can be configured in the same way, but only apply to the one staff member.

Both types of rates exceptions are added in a similar fashion however the global rate exceptions are added on the rota settings screen whilst the staff specific rate exceptions are added on a staff's profile.

Once you've clicked on "Exception" from either screen, you can then begin by clicking on "Add a new exception". You will then be prompted to enter in details about this exception, including a description, the rate amount, when and where it should apply. When it comes to entering in the new rate this can be done in a number of ways. You can use a multiplier for situations like double time, or you can enter a fixed monetary value, for example to double your staff's standard rate, you would enter "x2" as the rate. To enter a fixed rate of £12.90, simply enter 12.90. Once you've entered your exceptions click save to continue.

All the reports on Findmyshift will take your rate exceptions into account and should allow you to cost and pay your staff with speed and accuracy.

Faster scheduling with keyboard shortcuts

Save yourself time and effort with a few simple keyboard shortcuts we've put together for managing your staff rotas.

1.	Save your changes	CTRL + S
2.	Show next date range	CTRL + Right Arrow
3.	Show previous date range	CTRL + Left Arrow
4.	Undo the last change	CTRL + Z
5.	Select a cell	Left, Right, Up and Down Arrows
6.	Add or edit an item	Enter
7.	Clear the selected cell	Delete
8.	Copy the selected cell	CTRL + C
9.	Cut the selected cell	CTRL + X
10.	Paste the copied cell	CTRL + V
11.	Copy the current date range	CTRL + SHIFT + C
12.	Cut the current date range	CTRL + SHIFT + X
13.	Paste the copied date range	CTRL + SHIFT + V

Managing staff's overtime rates

Occasionally you may need to pay your staff "time and a half" or double pay on specific occasions and now it's easier than ever. To multiply the rate of a shift, click on a cell and begin typing "x" followed by the number multiplier (e.g. "x1.5" or "x2") and the rota will apply this to the hourly rate for that specific shift. It's important to put the multiplier beneath the shift time to instruct the system which shift to apply the overtime rate to. For example, to pay your staff double-time you would enter the comment "x2" beneath that shift.

We've designed Findmyshift so that overtime rates can also be used in combination with staff breaks, so if there's already a break entry beneath your overtime shift, you're free to place the overtime multiplier above or beneath the break item.

Overtime can be applied to shifts by typing "x" followed by any number. The overtime entry should be directly beneath the shift you wish to apply overtime to.

The budget report takes into account any overtime entered on the rota and then applies that to the actual costs for that particular date. Actual hours remain unaffected.

The hours report will similarly take into account any overtime entered on the rota and will reflect that in the cost and the rate multiplier. This report will also show a total for the amount of overtime worked.

Including breaks in your staff's pay reports

If you're tracking staff costs or generating payroll reports you may find the need to deduct unpaid breaks from staff shifts. Rather than splitting the shift into two parts, it's now easy to have Findmyshift deduct the break automatically by simply adding a break item beneath the shift. A break item is just a comment in the format "1 hour break" or "30 minutes break". It can be any amount of time you like, eg. "1.5 hours break" or "90 minutes break".

Break items can also be used in combination with overtime rates. So if you've already added a overtime rate beneath your shift, you're free to place the break item above or beneath the overtime rate.

Type any number followed by "hours break" directly beneath the shift you wish to deduct the break from.

Any breaks entered on the rota will be deducted from the actual hours and actual costs on the budget report.

Similary, the hours report will deduct any breaks from the hours and costs of the shift.

Adding attachments to the noticeboard

Due to popular demand, we've now given managers the ability to attach documents to their noticeboard messages. Attachments must be under 2 megabytes in size and one of the following formats: Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Pdf, Jpeg or Gif. If there's a format you need and it's not covered, send us an email and we'll do our best to accomodate you.