What are breaks?

Breaks in Zoho People Attendance Service are scheduled or unscheduled intervals during a work shift when employees can take time off from their work, such as for rest, meals, or other personal activities. Zoho People offers flexibility in setting up paid or unpaid break times for your employees, which can be logged in the following ways:

1. Manually recorded: Employees can check in and check out for their breaks based on the available break time.
2. Automatically marked: Breaks can be automatically marked based on check-in and check-out entries.
3. Automatically logged: Breaks can be automatically logged based on available break times (no manual break check-ins required)

You can set up breaks with a fixed duration for a shift or allocate break time based on employees' work hours within the shift.

Configuring breaks

1. From your home page, Navigate to Settings > Attendance > Configuration > Break. Click on Add Break.
   
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2. Enter a name for the break, and select the colour and icon for it.
   
3. Select the type as Paid or Unpaid to categorize the breaks logged by employees during their work shift hours.
   
   
   
   
4. Select the mode as Automatic or Manual
   
1. Automatic: Break times are automatically logged for employees based on the break time configuration.
2. Manual: Employees must check-in and check-out for break to log the break time.
   
   

   If you want to log the employee's break to be logged automatically based on their check-in and check-out entries, you must enable the 'Automatically mark breaks based on check-in and check-out entries' checkbox on the Start time - End time section.
   
5. Allocate break time:
   
1. Fixed Time: Allows you to set up fixed break times for your employees which can be logged during their work shift hours. For example, a lunch break can be set for 1 hour, from 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM.
   
2. Based on hours worked: Allows you to set up break times based on the employee's work hours. Break times will be credited at the end of the worked hours and can be logged by employees. For example, you can configure such as, employee works for 6 hours, a 45-minute break will be credited, and if they work for 8 hours, a 1-hour break will be credited in total.
6. Select the Start time - End time for a break.
   
1. For Automatic Break (Fixed time): The selected interval will be logged as break time, For example, if you set the start time as 12:30 PM and end time as 1:30 PM, the break time will be one hour which will be logged during the work shift hours.
   
2. For Manual Break (Fixed time): You can select the interval during which employees can log their breaks. In this case, you must set up the Allowed Duration, which defines the total break time that can be logged.
   

Limitation: If break restrictions are enabled in the shift’s core working hours, you cannot create a break configuration that overlaps with the core working hours.

- If employees try to manually start a break during core working hours, an error message will appear, and the system will not allow them to begin the break.



- In addition, automatic break logging are not allowed within the core working hours.

7. Select the applicable shifts for the break.
   
8. Click Save.
   

Watch our help video on how to configure breaks in attendance

How can Employees Log Manual Breaks in Zoho People

Breaks can only be logged after the employee checks in for their shift.

1. From home page, navigate to Attendance > Attendance Summary.
2. Click on the Break Icon.
   A list of breaks applicable to the employee will be displayed.
3. Based on the allowed timing, employees can manually log their allowed break duration by clicking the Start icon and the Resume Work button.
   
   
   

Example Break Configurations

Manual Break - Fixed Time Configuration 

In this configuration employee can avail 1 hour of break between 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM.

Manual Break - Based on Hours Worked Configuration

Automatic Break - Fixed Time Configuration

Automatic Break - Based on Hours Worked Configuration