What is a working pattern?
A working pattern sets how many hours an employee works each day of the week, for example 8 hours, Monday to Friday. Days set to 0 hours are days off.
Everyone gets your company's default pattern unless you assign a different one, such as for part-time staff or other schedules.
Before you begin
Check your access. Company administrators can always manage working patterns. Other users need a role with permission to Work patterns (Settings → Roles and permissions → open the role → Company → Settings → select Work patterns → Save).
Know the schedules you need. List the different schedules in your company (for example full-time, part-time mornings, four-day week) with the hours for each day. Each pattern needs a unique name, and daily hours can range from 0 to 24.
Decide whether you need start and end times. Besides daily hours, a pattern can optionally include start and end times and break hours for each day, which is useful if employees work fixed shifts.
Part 1: Set up working patterns
Create a working pattern
Go to Settings → HR → Work patterns.
Click + Add work pattern.
Enter a Name, for example "Part-time mornings".
Enter the hours for each day of the week. Monday to Friday are pre-filled with 8 hours, so just change what's different. Set days off to 0.
Click Save.
Add start and end times (optional)
If employees work fixed hours, you can set exact start and end times for each day. Do this while creating the pattern.
In the Add working pattern window, turn on Start and end times of the workday.
For each working day, set the Start-end time.
Enter Break hours, if any.
Work hours are calculated for you: end time minus start time, minus the break. For example, 9:00–18:00 with a 1-hour break = 8 hours.
To copy one day to all others, hover over it and click Apply to all. Then clear the days off.
Click Save.
Night shifts work too: if the end time is earlier than the start time (for example 22:00–06:00), the shift continues past midnight.
⚠️ Important: You can only turn start and end times on or off when creating the pattern. After saving, this can't be changed. To switch, create a new pattern and assign it to employees instead.
Where start and end times are used:
Leave requests by hours: when employees request leave by time, the request starts at their pattern's start time. Without one, it starts at 9:00.
Employee schedule: the times appear in the employee's daily schedule in the Time module.
💡 Tip: Skip start and end times if employees have flexible hours and you only need to track how many hours they work.
View all working patterns
Go to Settings → HR → Work patterns to see every pattern in your company. The table shows:
Work pattern name
Total weekly (hrs): how many hours per week the pattern includes
Employees: how many employees use this pattern
Edit or delete a working pattern
Go to Settings → HR → Work patterns.
Click the three dots at the end of the row.
Select Edit to change the pattern, or Delete and confirm to remove it.
Good to know:
When you edit a pattern, expected hours in timesheets are updated for everyone who uses it.
The default pattern can't be deleted.
If you delete a pattern, everyone using it is moved to the default pattern.
Part 2: Assign working patterns to employees
Assign a working pattern
Different employees can have different patterns, even if they're all full-time. For example, marketing might work 9 hours a day, Monday to Friday, while customer support works 8 hours a day, Sunday to Thursday.
Open the employee's profile.
Go to the Job tab.
Add the working pattern to their employment status.
In Effective from, choose when the pattern should start. This can be a future date.
Click Save.
💡 Tip: You can assign patterns one by one from each employee's profile, or to many employees at once through bulk import. Bulk import is quicker for a whole team or department.
Change an employee's working pattern
Open the employee's profile and go to the Job tab.
In the Employment status section, find the record you want to change.
Click the three dots and select Edit.
Choose the new pattern and click Save.
💡 If your company uses the Time product, the employee's timesheet shows their expected and remaining hours based on the new pattern from the effective date. Earlier periods keep the previous pattern. To fill in the timesheet quickly, the employee can click Autofill and then submit it.
Part 3: Give access to manage working patterns
Allow users who aren't administrators to create, edit and delete working patterns:
Go to Settings → Roles and permissions.
Open the role you want to change, or click to create a new one.
Go to Company → Settings select Work patterns.
Click Save.
