Custom schedules & assigned shifts (and why they're not overtime)

What this guide covers

How to give someone a different working schedule for a day — assigning a one-off shift, recording emergency (early) leave, or overriding the pattern for set dates — and, importantly, why none of these is the way to pay overtime. If you want to pay extra hours, that's Manage hours, not a custom shift.

Who does what: managers assign shifts (from Manage schedules → Assign Shift) and confirm past/emergency days; employees accept an assigned shift and can file emergency leave themselves. HR can do all of it.

The one thing to understand first

A custom schedule / assigned shift 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 three tools

Assign a shift (manager)

From Manage schedules → Assign Shift, pick the employee, a date, start/end times and a reason. This creates a manager-assigned shift that the employee must accept — it appears in their approvals inbox. Once accepted, that day's schedule window is set to what you assigned (even a normally-off day). You can cancel an assigned shift: if it was already accepted, the employee acknowledges the withdrawal first. Track them under Assigned Shifts.

Emergency leave (employee)

An employee who has to leave early files emergency leave: 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.

Schedule override (manager / HR)

An override changes the working pattern for specific dates — different times, or marking a day a rest day — with a scope of Once, Range or Permanent. It changes the day's expected hours directly (no acceptance step). This is for lasting/planned pattern changes, distinct from a one-off assigned shift.

What all three 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 shift (or a custom window) changes the schedule for that day. It does not, by itself, add or pay any overtime.
A shift 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).
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.

So, to pay someone extra hours: authorise the time in Manage hours. Don't invent a long "shift" to try to force overtime — the schedule and the overtime engine are deliberately separate, and a custom shift won't produce the pay you expect.

Good to know

Assigned shifts 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 shift — 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 shift you assign.

How working time is calculated — 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 Shift tab).