Managing Time Off

StaffBrik provides a complete time-off management workflow - from the moment an employee submits a request through to approval, rota impact, and entitlement tracking. No more scribbled notes on the kitchen noticeboard or WhatsApp messages that get buried.

Time Off Request Types

StaffBrik supports three request types:

Type	Paid?	Description
Holiday	Yes	Annual leave taken from the employee's entitlement allowance
Unpaid Leave	No	Agreed time off without pay. Does not use entitlement
Other	Your choice	Anything else, such as jury service, compassionate leave, parental leave or study leave. A reason is required, and you choose whether it is paid

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Sickness is not a time-off request. Planned medical time off (a hospital procedure next month, say) can be booked as Other. Unplanned sickness goes through the Absences workflow, which handles SSP and return-to-work.

Request Workflow

The time-off workflow follows a simple three-stage process:

Employee submits request → Pending → Manager approves or rejects

Submitting a Request

Employees submit time-off requests from the Team App, and you can add one on their behalf from StaffBrik > Time Off (viewers do not see Add Time Off). Each request includes:

• Type of time off (from the list above).
• Start date and end date.
• Notes (optional) - e.g. "Family wedding in Edinburgh" or "Half-term childcare".

Employees pick dates only, never times. The request keeps the dates they asked for (Friday to Sunday, say), in their list and in your review, but only the days they actually work in that range are booked and counted. StaffBrik works out each day in turn:

1. A shift is already on the rota for that day: the shift's own times are used.
2. No shift, but their working pattern covers that weekday: the pattern's times are used. A pattern day with two shifts (a split day) counts both.
3. No working pattern at all: they are booked on their own working days, which are their qualifying days, or Monday to Friday if none are set. Each day is their own day length: their contracted hours spread over those days, or your Hours per day setting if they have no contracted hours.
4. Anything else: the day is left out, so weekends and regular days off do not quietly eat into someone's allowance.

The rota decides, site by site. In a week where the rota for that site already has them on, pattern days and plain working days with no shift are not booked: the rota shows which days they work that week, including whether it is Week A or Week B of a rotating pattern. A pattern day is judged by the rota for the pattern's site, and a plain day by the rota for their primary location (any site if they have none), so a cover shift at another site does not change their own site's days. You can still tick those days in the review.

Breaks. A day on a scheduled shift pays exactly that shift's own paid time, with its own break (or none). Other days take breaks off according to your break policy, so a 9am to 5pm pattern day with an unpaid 30 minute break counts as 7.5 paid hours. A plain working day pays its full length, with any unpaid break added on to the end: with 8 hours a day and a 30 minute unpaid break, the day is shown as 09:00 to 17:30 and pays 8 hours. A very long plain day, over about 14.5 hours, starts before 09:00 so the whole day fits.

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If someone asks only for dates the rota already has them off, the request holds the days they usually work (their pattern days or their working weekdays) for you to decide, never every date in the range. The review lists every day they asked for, with the days they do not work unticked, so you can see exactly what you are approving.

When a request comes in you get an in-app notification with a Review request link straight to it.

Reviewing Pending Requests

Pending requests appear in StaffBrik > Time Off and on the manager dashboard. For each request, you can see:

• Who is requesting time off and for when.
• How many hours/days the request covers.
• Whether any shifts are affected (shifts already published for the requested dates).
• The employee's remaining entitlement balance.

caution

Always check who else is off before approving a request. If your head baker and your pastry chef are both off on the same Saturday, you may struggle to open the bakery. StaffBrik does not flag two different people being off at once, so use the Calendar View to see everyone's approved and pending time off side by side.

Choosing Review & approve on a pending request opens the review, so you see exactly what you are agreeing to before it lands on the rota:

• The request itself. The employee is fixed, but the type, dates, paid or unpaid setting, reason and notes can all be corrected.
• Day by day. Every date in the range is listed with where its hours came from: a scheduled shift, the employee's working pattern, or a default day when there is neither. Days they do not work are listed unticked. Untick a day to drop it, tick one to add it, or edit its start and end times to book a half day. A day whose end is at or before its start is flagged on the day and stops you saving: "Tue 6 Oct must end after it starts. Change its times, or untick it." An overnight shift day runs past midnight as it should.
• Hours and pay. Paid hours, break time and the Estimated Pay update as you change the days. Estimated Pay prices each day "at the base hourly rate in force each day", so leave across a pay rise uses the new rate from the day it starts, and it matches what is saved. It is what their holiday pay costs you. The rota adds employer NI and pension on top, as it does for shifts (see Planned and Actual Labour).
• Location. The site the cost is attributed to (see below).

Nothing is decided until you choose. Save changes keeps the request pending with your edits, ready to come back to. Save & Approve saves and approves in one step.

If something is refused, in the review or when rejecting, deleting, cancelling or adjusting a balance, the dialog stays open and shows the plain reason, for example "Only pending requests can be rejected", and the list refreshes. If another manager has already deleted the request, it says "This time off request no longer exists. It may have been deleted. Refresh to see the latest."

One Request per Person for the Same Time

The same person cannot hold two live requests (pending or approved) for the same time. Overlapping approved requests would count their holiday twice, so StaffBrik refuses them:

• Adding a request that overlaps one of the same person's pending or approved requests is refused, with a message naming the other request, such as "These dates overlap a pending holiday request for 3 Nov 2026 to 7 Nov 2026. Change the dates, or cancel the other request first."
• Editing a request so it covers days or hours it did not cover before is checked the same way. Trimming a request is always fine.
• Approving a request is refused while an approved request for the same person covers the same time. Reject one, or cancel the other first.

The form warns you before you save: if the dates overlap the person's other time off, it lists the clashing requests and what to do.

Two single-day requests on the same day only clash if their hours meet, so a morning appointment and an afternoon off on the same day are fine. Employees see the same rule in the Team App: a clash with a pending request asks them to change the dates or cancel their other request, and a clash with approved time off asks them to change the dates or ask their manager to cancel it.

Time off cannot be added for an employee who has been archived. Archiving someone also tidies up their time off:

• Pending requests are rejected, with the note "Rejected automatically when they were archived."
• Approved time off starting after today is cancelled, with the note "Cancelled automatically when they were archived."
• Time off already under way is kept, along with everything in the past.

See Archiving an Employee.

Approving or Rejecting

Review & approve on a pending request opens the review above, and Save & Approve is what actually approves it. Reject asks you for a comment explaining why - this is good practice and creates a fair, transparent record.

Example rejection comment: "Sorry Jordan, we already have two team members off that week and need at least three front-of-house staff for the weekend. Could you look at the following week instead?"

The employee gets a push notification in the Team App the moment you approve, reject or cancel their request, with your comment or reason included, so there is no need to chase them separately.

tip

Respond to time-off requests promptly. Employees often need to book travel or make arrangements, and a request sitting in "pending" for two weeks creates unnecessary anxiety.

Location

Every approved request is attributed to one site, and that is where its paid cost lands. StaffBrik suggests the site for you, in this order:

1. The location of the scheduled shifts the time off covers.
2. The location on the working pattern behind those days.
3. The employee's primary site from their profile.
4. Your only site, if you run a single location.

If the shifts span more than one site, StaffBrik makes no suggestion and asks you to choose where the cost should sit. On a single-site account there is nothing to pick and the site is simply shown for reference.

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A location is required before you can approve. If you run more than one site and the request has none, approval is refused with "Choose a location for this time off before approving it". Set it in the review and approve again.

Cover follows the person, cost follows the site. The employee shows as off on every site's rota for those dates, and any shift they had is deducted there, so no manager is left thinking they have cover they do not have. The paid hours only count against the wage budget of the site you chose, so one site's holiday bill never inflates another's.

Cancelling Time Off

Plans change. A request can be cancelled at two points:

• Pending requests can be cancelled by anyone with edit access, or by the employee themselves from the Team App. No reason is needed; it simply no longer needs a decision.
• Approved requests can be cancelled by owners and admins from the request's actions menu (or from the employee's profile under Time Off). A reason is required, and the employee can see it in the Team App.

Cancelling approved time off does three things automatically:

1. For holiday, the hours go back into the employee's entitlement, day by day, for the holiday year each day fell in (not the current year, so a cancelled booking for next April is credited to next year's allowance). A booking that crosses the start of your holiday year is split between the two years, so each year gets back the days that belonged to it.
2. Any rota those dates touched has its costs recalculated, so your wage budget and reports no longer show the cancelled leave.
3. The request stays in the list marked Cancelled, with who cancelled it, when, and why. It is not deleted.

Unpaid leave and other time off do not use the allowance, so cancelling them gives no hours back, and the cancel dialog does not say it will.

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Cancel, don't delete. Delete is only available for pending requests and is meant for entries made by mistake; it hides the request entirely and keeps no reason. Once time off has been approved, cancelling is the only way to undo it, which keeps a fair record for both sides.

If an approved booking needs different dates, cancel it and add a new request with the corrected dates (use Save & Approve to approve it in one step).

Calendar View

The Calendar View shows approved and pending time off on a monthly grid, with each person's name on the days they are off. This gives you an instant visual overview of:

• Who is off and when.
• Where the gaps are.
• Peak periods where you might want to restrict approvals.

Colour coding distinguishes between approved (solid) and pending (striped) requests, as well as different time-off types. The employee, type, status and location filters above the calendar apply to it too, so you can check one site or one person at a time.

The calendar shows only the days a request really covers. A day you unticked in the review, or a day they do not work inside a requested range, is not shown as off. Days from the previous and next month at the edges of the grid show their time off too.

List View with Filters

The List View shows all time-off requests in a sortable, filterable table. Under a request's dates you see any note on it: the reason it was rejected or cancelled, or a day given back because the person worked an open shift that day. You can filter by:

• Status - pending, approved, rejected, cancelled.
• Type - holiday, unpaid leave or other.
• Date range - show requests within a specific period.
• Employee - view a single employee's history.
• Location - if you operate multiple sites. A site's filter shows the people who normally work there: their primary location, a working pattern there, or shifts there during the dates. It includes them even when their time off is costed to another site. The Pending Approval card and the other totals follow the filter too.

This view is particularly useful for payroll processing, where you need to see all approved time off for a given pay period.

Affected Shifts Detection

When an employee requests time off, StaffBrik automatically checks the published rota for any shifts assigned to that employee during the requested period, at any of your sites. Affected shifts are displayed on the request with their times, role and site, so you can see the operational impact before making a decision.

If you approve the request, affected shifts are flagged on the rota as needing cover. This keeps your rota view accurate without requiring you to manually cross-reference calendars and schedules. If one of those shifts needs someone else, the time off cell on the rota has a Find cover button that posts the shift as an open shift.

Shifts covered by approved time off are treated as not being worked:

• The Team App says so. The employee sees the shift marked On holiday (or On leave for other time off), with "Your 09:00 to 17:00 shift is covered." It is left out of their weekly hours and is never suggested when they clock in. See Using the Team App.
• No attendance flags or reminder. A covered shift raises no "No clock-in" or other attendance flags, unless the person clocks in to it anyway, and they are not sent the "Your shift starts at..." reminder.
• Timesheets leave it out. The weekly timesheet's Scheduled hours do not include it, so holiday never shows as negative overtime. See Timesheets and Attendance Flags.

Booking Over Approved Leave

Once time off is approved, the rota will not let you add a shift for that employee on those days, or drag an existing shift onto one. The same applies to any day with a logged absence. You get a message naming the person and the day, rather than a silent double-booking that sits hidden behind the leave marker while still counting against your wage budget.

Pending requests do not block anything, so you can carry on building the rota while a request waits for a decision. If someone genuinely needs to work a day they have booked off, cancel the time off (or trim its dates in the review) and then add the shift.

Open shifts are the exception. Someone on approved holiday may still choose to pick up an open shift that day: the Team App warns them first that claiming gives that day back to their holiday allowance, and if the shift needs your approval, the claim request warns you too. When they get the shift, that day stops being time off: it comes off the request (a request for that day only is cancelled), its hours go back to their allowance, and it is no longer paid as holiday. The shift counts as worked, in the rota cost, the Team App, reminders and attendance, and so does any of their own shifts that day the holiday covered (you are told which, so you can remove one they are not working). A pending request for that day loses it too. The request notes what happened, for example "Mon 12 Oct given back: worked an open shift." The day is not put back if the shift is later taken off them. See Working on a Day Off.

Time off booked after someone has claimed a shift does cover that shift, like any other shift on the days booked.

Auto-Calculation of Hours

StaffBrik calculates the number of hours covered by a time-off request based on the employee's scheduled shifts. This matters because:

• Annual leave deductions are calculated in hours, not days, giving accurate entitlement tracking for employees with variable shift patterns.
• A full-time restaurant manager taking Monday to Friday off uses 40 hours, while a part-time barista taking the same week off might only use 16 hours.

Where no shift is scheduled for a day, StaffBrik uses the employee's working pattern for that weekday. A scheduled shift keeps its own break, and pattern days follow your break policy, so the hours booked match the hours the employee would have been paid for. If they have no working pattern at all, they are booked on their own working days at their own day length, as described in Submitting a Request.

Paid time off is costed day by day at the pay rate in force on each day, so leave that runs across a pay rise uses the new rate from the day it starts.

Where hours are shown as days, StaffBrik converts them at your Hours per day, except on an employee's own Time Off tab, which uses that employee's own working day (6 hours for someone on 3 days of 6 hours, say).

Every day is editable in the review, so a half day or an unusual shift is just a matter of changing that day's times before you approve.

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Auto-calculation ensures part-time employees are treated fairly. A part-time worker who works 3 days a week uses 3 days of entitlement for a full week off, not 5. This is a legal requirement under the Part-Time Workers Regulations 2000.