Employee Warning: Short Break

This break feature is hidden. When hidden, this feature will not be usable. Contact support@telephonetimesheets to enable this feature. If enabled, employees will receive a text message warning them they are ending their break too soon. Short break employee warnings will help reduce violations due to employees ending their breaks before the required minimum duration. The minimum break duration (in hours and minutes) can be configured by Telephone Timesheets support staff.

This feature is useful in states like California that have strict laws to ensure that employees are allowed to take breaks of a certain length. For example, they might be required to take a 30-minute lunch break if they have worked 5 hours or more. If employees don’t stay on break for the full time (30-minutes in this example), there can be significant legal and financial penalties. To protect employees and employers, the system supports short break employee warnings.

For example, if short break warnings are enabled with a time of 30 minutes, and an employee attempts to end their break at 28 minutes, they will have one of the following experiences:

• For employee web portal users:
  When the employee clicks on the End Break button, they will see a warning message as shown below.
  

• For text-in breaks (assuming text-in breaks are enabled):
  When an employee is on break and texts the letter ‘b’ to end their break, they will receive this text message. “Warning! Your break of 11 minutes for job [Job Name] does not meet the minimum break time of 30 minutes. Text the letter b one more time to end this break.” This will give the employee the opportunity to text again to once they have completed the full 30 minute break. Otherwise, they can continue on a will be allowed to end their break early, but the warning will be recorded in their time entry details.
  

• For call-in employees (assuming call-in breaks are enabled):
  When an employee is on a break and calls in, the first thing they will hear is “Warning! You are currently on break but have not completed the minimum break time for job [Job Name].” This will give the employee the opportunity to hang up and call back later when they have completed the full 30 minute break. Otherwise, they can continue on and will be allowed to end their break early, but the warning will be recorded in their time entry details.