Adding Employees
Every member of your team needs a profile in StaffBrik before they can be assigned to shifts. This guide walks through creating employees manually - the most common approach when onboarding new hires.
If you already have staff set up in Xero Payroll, you can import them directly instead of entering details by hand.
Creating an Employee
Navigate to StaffBrik > Team and click Add Employee. A short wizard walks you through each section (see The Add Employee Wizard below).
Required Fields
| Field | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| First name | Employee's given name | Sarah |
| Last name | Employee's surname | Patel |
| Phone (UK mobile) | Used as the employee's login credential | 07700 900123 |
| For notifications and correspondence | sarah.patel@email.co.uk | |
| Employment type | Contracted, zero-hours, or casual | Contracted |
| Base hourly rate | The employee's standard pay rate | £11.44 |
| Start date | First day of employment | 01/03/2026 |
| Access level | What the employee can do in the Team App | Employee |
Optional but Recommended Fields
| Field | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Preferred name | The name the employee goes by, if different from their first name | Shown instead of their first name across Brikly - see Preferred Names |
| Gender | Male, female, or prefer not to say | Used for workforce reporting |
| Date of birth | Employee's DOB | Determines NI category eligibility (under 21, apprentice under 25) |
| Contracted hours | Weekly hours guaranteed in the contract | Leave blank for zero-hours staff |
| NI category | National Insurance category letter | Defaults to A if not set - see table below |
| Qualifying days | Days of the week the employee normally works | Used for SSP calculations |
| Pension opt-in | Whether the employee is enrolled in auto-enrolment pension | Ticked by default, except for NI letters outside auto-enrolment (M, Z, X, C, S and K), where it starts unticked. Anyone can still opt in |
Phone Number as Login
StaffBrik uses the employee's UK mobile number as their login credential for the Team App. When they first sign in, they receive a verification code via SMS.
Each phone number must be unique across your organisation. If an employee changes their number, update it in their profile before they try to log in with the new one.
The Team App login belongs to the person, not to one business. Someone who already uses the Team App for another business can be added with the same number, and archiving them at one business does not affect their access at the other. Changing their number in their profile keeps their login working.
App Access
The App Access switch on the first step of the wizard decides whether the person can sign in to the Team App. It is on by default. When it is on and they have a phone number, they get a text inviting them to the Team App as soon as you save. Turn it off for anyone who will never use the app, such as a director who only appears on payroll. You can turn it on later from their profile, which sends the invite then.
Only owners and admins can change the switch once someone has been added. Members see it on the profile, locked, with "Only owners and admins can change this."
App access cannot be turned on for someone who has been archived: their profile says to restore them first. A leaver is never sent an invite text.
Preferred Names
If someone goes by a different name - Edward who everyone calls Ted, for example - enter it in the Preferred name field. Their legal first name stays as it is.
When a preferred name is set, Brikly shows it in place of the first name everywhere your team sees a name:
- The rota, absences, SSP, time off and reports in StaffBrik
- The Team app, including chat and the home screen greeting
- The Kiosk, when they sign in with their passcode to clock in or out
Their profile shows the legal name underneath ("Legal name: Edward O'Brien"), so you can always see both.
Anything that goes to payroll or another system keeps the legal name: Xero Payroll, timesheet and report CSV exports, and Square team sync. Syncing with Xero never changes or clears a preferred name.
To remove a preferred name, clear the field and save. Only owners and managers can set it; employees cannot change it from the Team app.
Employment Types
Choose the type that matches the employee's contract:
- Contracted - the employee has a fixed weekly hours commitment (e.g., 30 hours per week). Enter their contracted hours alongside this selection.
- Zero-hours - the employee has no guaranteed hours but is available to be scheduled. Leave contracted hours blank.
- Casual - for irregular, ad-hoc workers such as event staff or seasonal help. Similar to zero-hours but typically with even less regularity.
Employment type affects how StaffBrik calculates SSP eligibility and contracted-hours reporting. It does not restrict how you schedule shifts - a zero-hours worker can still be given a full week of shifts.
NI Categories
National Insurance categories determine the rate of employer NI contributions. Setting the correct category ensures your data is accurate when it flows through to payroll.
StaffBrik offers all 17 letters HMRC and Xero Payroll use. The four most staff have are shown first in the picker, with the rarer letters below them.
| Category | Who it applies to | Employer NI |
|---|---|---|
| A | Standard - most employees aged 21 to State Pension age | 15% above £96 a week |
| M | Employees under 21 | None up to £967 a week, then 15% |
| H | Apprentices under 25 | None up to £967 a week, then 15% |
| C | Employees over State Pension age | 15% above £96 a week, as standard (it is the employee's own NI that stops) |
| B | Married women's reduced rate | 15% above £96 a week, as standard |
| J | Deferred (pays NI in another job) | 15% above £96 a week, as standard |
| Z | Under 21, deferred | None up to £967 a week, then 15% |
| V | Veterans in their first civilian job | None up to £967 a week, then 15% |
| X | No NI to pay (typically under 16) | None |
| F, I, L, S | Freeport workers (standard, reduced rate, deferred, over State Pension age) | None up to £481 a week, then 15% |
| N, E, D, K | Investment zone workers (standard, reduced rate, deferred, over State Pension age) | None up to £481 a week, then 15% |
No employer NI is due on earnings below the £96 a week secondary threshold for any letter.
If you employ young staff - common in cafes and bakeries - double-check their NI category. Setting an under-21 barista to category M instead of A can save meaningful employer NI contributions over the year.
Base Hourly Rate
Enter the employee's standard hourly rate in pounds. This is the rate used when calculating shift costs on the rota.
A few things to keep in mind:
- The rate must meet or exceed the current National Minimum Wage / National Living Wage for the employee's age group.
- The Pay & Tax step starts at the hourly rate of the role you chose, or at your baseline rate when the role has none. Change it to what this person is paid.
- Every shift is costed at the employee's own rate. There is no separate rate per role or per shift, so if someone is paid more when they run a shift as supervisor, give them a rate that reflects it.
- Rate changes are tracked in the employee's pay rate history, so you always have a record of what was paid and when.
Access Levels
Each employee has an access level that sets what they can do in the Team App:
| Level | What it allows |
|---|---|
| Owner | Everything a manager can do. Reserved for the business owners and directors |
| Manager | Post announcements to the team, moderate comments, and start chat groups in the Team App even when group conversations are switched off for the team |
| Employee | The standard level for everyone else |
Access level is separate from the role someone has in the Brikly web app (owner, admin, member or viewer), which is set under Settings > Team and decides what they can see and change on the web. See Roles and Permissions.
Who can give which level
Access levels follow the same rules as web roles:
- Owner access - only an owner can give someone owner access, or change the level of someone who has it.
- Manager access - only an owner or admin can give someone manager access, or change the level of someone who has it.
- Employee access - anyone who can add and edit staff can give it.
The access level picker only offers the levels you can give. When you open the profile of someone whose level you cannot change, the picker is locked and says why, for example "Only an owner or admin can change the access of someone with manager access."
Be careful giving Owner access - it is meant for the people who own or run the business. Most venue managers should be set to Manager.
The Add Employee Wizard
Clicking Add Employee opens a wizard with six steps:
- Personal - name, contact details, date of birth, gender, and the App Access switch.
- Employment - role, employment type, access level, primary location, start date, contracted hours and qualifying days.
- Pay & Tax - hourly rate, NI category and pension opt-in.
- Holiday - the holiday allowance, worked out for you (see Holiday Entitlements).
- Notes - anything else worth recording.
- Review - a summary of all details before saving.
You can skip back and forth between steps. Nothing is saved until you confirm on the final step, and everything you entered is saved together, including app access and the access level.
Primary Location
Each employee has a primary location: the site they normally work at. It decides which site's announcements reach them in the Team App, and which site's SafetyBrik checks they can do on the Team App when they aren't clocked in. StaffBrik uses it when suggesting which site an absence or time off is costed to.
If your business has only one active site, every new employee is given that site as their primary location automatically. The location picker in the wizard is filled in for you, and the same happens when people arrive from a Xero import or a Square team sync. With more than one site, choose the location in the wizard, or leave it as No location assigned and set it later from their profile.
Adding Someone from the Employees Page
You can also add people from the shared Employees page in the sidebar, which SafetyBrik uses too. There, Start date is required and starts on today.
If your business has StaffBrik, someone added there is set up just as if you had added them on StaffBrik's Team page, so they can go straight on the rota:
- A first pay rate from their start date. It is your baseline rate or the minimum wage for their age, whichever is higher. Their Pay tab marks it "No hourly rate was reported, so a placeholder was used. Check it." Change it there if they are paid more (see Employee Profiles).
- NI and pension follow the same defaults as the Add Employee wizard, based on their date of birth.
- Contracted hours are 0 for zero-hours and casual staff. For contracted staff, enter their weekly hours on their edit page. Until you do, their holiday allowance assumes full time, and it updates once the hours are in.
- Team App: if App Access is on, they get a login and one text inviting them to the Team App.
If you have StaffBrik but haven't finished setting it up yet, the Employees page asks you to finish setup first, because StaffBrik uses your settings to set up their pay. Someone added on the Employees page before your business had StaffBrik opens in StaffBrik with no pay rate: add one on their Pay tab before putting them on the rota.
The Employees page and the StaffBrik Team and rota pages keep each other up to date after any add, edit, archive or restore.
If your business doesn't have StaffBrik (for example, you use SafetyBrik on its own), the Employees page is also where you give someone a kiosk passcode. Edit the person and use the Kiosk access card in the dialog to set, reset or remove their code. A new person can't have one until they are saved: the add dialog says "You can give them a kiosk passcode once they're added." Only owners and admins can manage passcodes. Businesses with StaffBrik keep using the Kiosk access card on the StaffBrik profile.
What Happens Next
Once an employee is created:
- They appear in the employee list on the Team page.
- They can be scheduled on the rota builder.
- If App Access is on and they have a phone number, they receive a text inviting them to the Team App.
- If you run payroll in Xero, you can link them to their Xero record with Sync Xero so pay changes flow through automatically.