Premium Policies

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Premium policies provide a method for tracking time separately according to specific criteria, usually for the purpose of paying employees at different rates. The criteria can be specific days of the month, the time of day that an employee works, or specific Branches, Departments, Jobs and Tasks that an employee may work on.

For example, the use of premium policies is paying employees who work evening or weekend shifts, or for special work types, such as hazardous or dangerous pay.

NOTE:  Unlike Overtime Policies, where overtime calculates against regular time and a single overtime policy at a time, premium policies are non-exclusive.

For example, if you have a weekend premium policy and an evening premium policy, and the employee works an evening shift on a weekend, they could have double premium time hours than the time that they actually work.

TIP:  This policy must be assigned to a Policy Group before it will become active. See Setting up Policies.

See the Basic Operation section for details on viewing, adding, editing and deleting.

 

Premium Policy Tab
FIELD DESCRIPTION
Type There are many types of premium policies to choose from and depending on the type, there may be additional options on the main tab and the other tabs that you should consider.
TYPEDESCRIPTION
Date/TimeSpecify the criteria based on the date or time that an employee works.
Date/Time Criteria Tab
FIELDDESCRIPTION
Start DateThe date on which this policy becomes active. If you don’t specify a date, then the policy is always active.
End DateThe date on which this policy becomes inactive. If you don’t specify a date, then the policy is always active.
Start TimeThe time at which this policy becomes active. This is used for setting evening shift premiums.
End TimeThe time when this policy becomes inactive.
Active After Daily (Regular) HoursThe minimum amount of regular time that an employee must work on a given day before this policy activates.
Active After Weekly (Regular) HoursThe minimum amount of regular time that an employee must work in a given week before this policy activates.
Effective DaysIn this field you check off the days of the week that this policy is to be active. This is useful for weekend premiums.
HolidaysSpecifies how to handle shifts that may fall on a holiday.
TYPEDESCRIPTION
Have no effectHolidays have no effect on this policy.
Always on HolidaysShifts that fall on a holiday, even if the employee is not eligible for that holiday, will be included.
Never on HolidaysIgnore shifts that fall on a holiday.
Shift DifferentialShift differential policies allow you to pay employees at different rates depending on the branch, department, job, job group, task or task group they work.
Differential Criteria Tab
FIELDDESCRIPTION
Selection TypeDefines the selection criteria for each field, either "All," "Only Selected," or "All Except Selected." If you choose "Only Selected" or "All Except Selected" you should select one or more items in the boxes below.
Exclude DefaultCheck the box to enable this option, which sets TimeTrex to ignore the Default Branch (as defined in each employee's record).

For example, if you want all employees who work outside their default branch to receive this premium, you can enable this option and set the selection type to All Branches.

Pay Code Policy

Defines which contributing pay code policy this applies to, after all other criteria has been applied.

For example, if you want to apply different premium rates of pay to regular time (ie: $1/hr) and overtime (ie: $1.50/hr), you would create two premium policies, one with Regular Time selected here, and another with Over Time selected here.

Meal BreakChoosing this type allows you to define the maximum time that an employee can work without a break before they receive additional compensation.
Meal/Break Criteria Tab
FIELDDESCRIPTION
Active After Daily HoursThe minimum amount of regular time that an employee must work on a given day before this policy activates.
Maximum Time Without a BreakThe maximum amount of time that an employee can work without lunch or a break.
Minimum Time Recognized As a BreakThe minimum amount of time that an employee must take for lunch or break before it counts as a lunch or break and excludes the employee from this policy.

For example, this policy defines that if an employee doesn't take at least a 30 minute break after working 4 hours, they get paid for one additional hour. If you set this value to 30 minutes and the employee only takes a 15-minute break, they will still get paid for one additional hour.

CallbackChoosing this type will mean that you can compensate employees for callbacks to work before the amount of time you specify elapses between two successive shifts.
Callback Criteria Tab
FIELDDESCRIPTION
Minimum Time Between ShiftsThe minimum amount of time that must elapse between shifts.
First Shift Must Be At LeastThe amount of time that the first shift must exceed before this policy activates.
Minimum Shift TimeBy choosing this type, you can make a simple policy of the minimum amount of time that an employee will receive each shift.
Minimum Shift Time Criteria Tab
FIELDDESCRIPTION
Minimum Shift TimeThe minimum shift time that an employee will receive.

For example, if this value is set to 04:00 (4 hours) and the employee punches in for one hour, the employee will receive three hours of premium time to make the total work time and premium time equal to the value of the minimum shift time.

Minimum Time-off Between ShiftsThe minimum time-off between shifts before an employee will receive premium time.

In the case of a split shift, for example, if the value is set to 02:00 (2 hours), the employee punches out at the end of one shift and then 3 hours later punches back in, the employee would receive premium time; however if the employee punched back in 1.5 hours after the punch out time the employee would not receive premium time.

HolidayWhen this type is selected, it will apply to time employees work on a holiday, as defined by Holiday Policies.
AdvancedThis type is a combination of the Date/Time and Shift Differential types. You will see both tabs related to those types appear, and you can set the options on both tabs.
Minimum Time The minimum amount of premium time that the employee will receive.

For example, if you set the minimum to 4 hours and an employee only punches in for 2 hours, they will still receive 4 hours of premium time.
Maximum Time The maximum amount of premium time that the employee will receive.

For example, if you set this to 1 hour and an employee punches in for 4 hours, they will receive only 1 hour of premium time.
Min/Max Time Resets How often the Minimum/Maximum Time can be calculated, either Each Day or Each Punch.

For example, if Each Day with a Minimum Time of 1 hour is set and an employee punches into three jobs in that day they will receive 1 hour premium time. If Each Punch with a Minimum Time of 1 hour is set and an employee punches into three jobs in that day, they will receive 3 hours of premium time.

NOTE:  When using Min/Max Time Resets, Each Day, its based on the pay code. So if two premium policies both go to the same pay code, and one has a maximum of 4 hrs in a day, and other maximum of 2 hours in the day, it is an ambiguous situation and TimeTrex will max out at whichever is calculated first. Therefore, it is recommended to have each premium policy use a different pay code when using the "Each Day" setting to avoid ambiguity.
Include Partial Punches Check this box to allow partial punches to match this policy.

For example, consider a case where the start time is set to 6:00 PM and an employee punches in at 10:00 AM and then punches out at 7:00 PM. If you don’t enable this feature, then the employee punch will not match the criteria for this policy and the employee will not receive any premium time. However, if you enable this feature, then partial punches may count towards premium time, so the employee would receive premium time from 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM, or one hour in total.
Contributing Shift Policy Defines the shifts that are included in this policy calculation.
Pay Code Specifies the Pay Code that resulting time is recorded as.
Pay Formula Policy Determines how resulting time is converted to dollars. If a Pay Formula Policy is not explicitly defined then the Pay Formula Policy assigned to the above selected Pay Code is used instead.