Set Up Shift Schedules

Go to Shift Management, click Create Shift, set the Start Time and End Time in 24-hour format, choose Week Offs, set your Punch Method, and click Submit.

Shifts control when an employee is expected to be working, which days count as their weekly off, and how their attendance is recorded—they're the backbone that every attendance report, punctuality metric, and leave-day calculation ultimately relies on. A single company can run several shift patterns at once, and most do: a general day shift for most staff, a night shift for support or operations teams, and a lighter-touch work-from-home schedule for remote employees, all coexisting in the same HRMS instance and assigned to the right people during onboarding.

Building a shift correctly the first time means thinking through the full working day, not just start and end time. Breaks, week-offs, punctuality tolerance, and the calendar the shift follows are all part of one configuration, and getting them right up front avoids a stream of small correction requests later from employees whose attendance doesn't match what they actually worked.

Step-by-step:

1. From the HRMS dashboard, click Shift Management.
2. Click Create Shift.
3. Enter the shift start time (24H format) and end time (24H format).
4. Toggle Send Reminder when Shift Scheduled if you want employees notified ahead of their shift starting.
5. Under Select Week Offs, choose the Day of Week and Week Type (All, 1st, 2nd, and so on), then click Add. Repeat to add more than one week-off day—for example, Saturday (All) and Sunday (All), or an alternate-Saturday pattern using specific week numbers.
6. Select the calendar this shift should follow, for example, a named calendar like "Year-2026," so the right holidays apply automatically.
7. Choose the Punch Method—Mobile, Machine, or Both—to control how employees can check in and out for this shift. 
8. If attendance should be location-restricted, configure the Location and Location Radius fields (covered in full in the next article on geofencing).
9. Set Break Start Time, Break End Time, and, if applicable, Short Break Start Time and Short Break End Time, so break periods are correctly excluded from working hours calculations.
10. Set the max number of late arrivals allowed before the system flags a pattern of lateness worth reviewing.
11. Click Submit to save and activate the shift.

FAQ

Can I set different week-offs for different employees on the same shift?

Yes—the Week Type field lets you apply a week off to all weeks or only specific weeks (like the 1st and 3rd Saturday), a common pattern for alternate-saturday-off policies without needing a completely separate shift for that subgroup.

What's the difference between mobile, machine, and both punch methods?

This is covered in full detail in the next article, but in short: Mobile allows check-in from the Hoicko mobile app, Machine relies on a biometric/attendance device, and Both accepts either method for the same shift.

Does the location radius apply to remote employees too?

No—geofencing only applies to shifts where you've configured a location and location radius. Remote or WFH shifts can be created entirely without this restriction, since there's no fixed office location to check against.

Can one shift be reused across multiple departments?

Yes—a shift is a standalone configuration, not tied to a specific department, so the same "General Shift" can be assigned to employees across several different departments if they all work the same hours.