What this guide covers
How to give someone a different working schedule for a day — assigning a one-off custom schedule, or recording emergency (early) leave — and, importantly, why neither of these is the way to pay overtime. If you want to pay extra hours, that's Manage hours, not a custom schedule.
Who does what: managers assign custom schedules (from Manage schedules → Assign Custom Schedule) and confirm past/emergency days; employees accept an assigned custom schedule and can file emergency leave themselves. HR can do all of it.
The one thing to understand first
A custom schedule changes when a person is expected to work on a day — the working window for that day. Attendance then measures their clock-ins against that window. It does not set pay rates and it does not, on its own, grant overtime.
The screen itself puts it this way: a custom schedule is a one-off change to an employee's normal working hours for a single day — starting earlier, finishing later, or working a day they aren't normally rostered. It does not change their standing schedule. Once the employee accepts it, those hours become authorised and count toward their weekly hours; any authorised hours beyond their weekly contracted hours are paid as overtime. Hours worked without an approved custom schedule show as unauthorised and are not paid until a manager authorises them.
The two tools
Assign a custom schedule (manager)
From Manage schedules → Assign Custom Schedule, pick the employee, then enter the Date, Start Time and End Time and an optional Message to Employee. A hint tells you which kind it will be: "Future date — this will be a pre-approved custom schedule" or "Past date — the employee must approve this before the hours are authorised." Click Assign Custom Schedule. The employee sees it as an Assigned Shift card on their Pending Approvals and accepts or declines it. Once accepted, that day's schedule window is set to what you assigned (even a normally-off day).
Track them on the Custom Schedules tab, which lists active ones (PENDING, APPROVED, CANCEL PENDING, COUNTER PROPOSED, COUNTER ACCEPTED) and a collapsed History of rejected and cancelled ones. Cancel opens the Cancel Custom Schedule dialog: a pending one is withdrawn immediately; an approved one asks the employee to acknowledge the cancellation before the overtime is removed from their day. Give a reason and confirm with Cancel custom schedule, or click Keep it.
Emergency leave (employee)
An employee who has to leave early files emergency leave from My Schedule: they pick the date, the leave time and a reason. myWork clocks them out at that time, and the day becomes a shorter day. A manager later confirms it on the attendance report. Emergency leave records that the day was cut short — the missing time is a shortfall (settled as flexi/unpaid per policy), never overtime.
There is no longer a Schedule Override tool on Manage schedules. The override form (Once / Range / Permanent scope, rest-day toggle) was removed from the schedule editor. For a lasting change to someone's pattern, use Propose Edit or Propose Template Change on the Attendance & Shifts tab; for a single day, assign a custom schedule.
What both tools have in common
They set the day's expected working window — the schedule the person is measured against. They change the shape of the day, not the rate of pay.
Why a custom schedule is NOT how you give overtime
This is the load-bearing point:
- Assigning a custom schedule changes the schedule for that day. It does not, by itself, add or pay any overtime.
- A day the same length or shorter than the normal day is 0 overtime. Emergency leave makes the day shorter, so it's a shortfall, never OT.
- Overtime is a separate, weekly result — authorised hours above the weekly ordinary contract, approved by a manager in Manage hours and worked out when the week closes (see How working time is calculated: ordinary hours, overtime & authorised time).
- Even assigning work on a normally-off day doesn't "grant" OT: it sets the expectation; whether any of those hours become overtime is still decided by the weekly calculation on authorised hours, and the weekly overtime cap still applies.
So, to pay someone extra hours that were actually worked: authorise the time in Manage hours. Don't invent a long custom schedule to try to force overtime — the schedule and the overtime engine are deliberately separate, and a custom schedule won't produce the pay you expect.
Good to know
- Custom schedules are two-party — the employee accepts, so both sides agree to the changed day (mirrors the schedule-change flow on Manage schedules).
- Emergency leave is one-sided to file, then confirmed — it takes effect on the clock immediately; the manager confirms the shorter window afterward.
- A shortfall isn't fixed by a custom schedule — if a day ran short, that's handled in the weekly review (flexi/unpaid), not by back-dating overtime.
- Overtime eligibility is a property of the schedule — a schedule set to "no overtime" shows over-ordinary time as unpaid extra, never OT, no matter what custom schedule you assign.
Related guides
- How working time is calculated: ordinary hours, overtime & authorised time — the full ordinary-hours / overtime / authorised-time model.
- Manage hours: authorise and decline your team's time — where overtime is actually authorised and paid.
- Manage schedules: set your team's working pattern — the recurring pattern (and the Assign Custom Schedule tab).