Managing Rotas, Timesheets and Holiday for Employees with Irregular Hours
For businesses that employ people on variable or irregular hours, managing staff can become surprisingly complicated. One week an employee might work 10 hours, the next 30, and the week after perhaps none at all. Add changing rotas, overtime, holiday requests and payroll deadlines, and what initially looks like a simple administrative task can quickly become a significant burden for a business owner.
The challenge is not simply knowing when your employees are working. You also need accurate records of what they actually worked, how much they should be paid and how much holiday they have accrued.
For many small businesses, this is still being managed through spreadsheets, paper timesheets, WhatsApp messages and emails. That approach can work when you have a handful of employees. As your workforce grows, however, it can become increasingly difficult to manage accurately.
The challenge starts with the rota
Creating a staff rota is more than simply filling shifts. You need to make sure you have enough people working at the right times while also taking into account employee availability, holidays, sickness and changes to the schedule.
With irregular-hours employees, the rota can change frequently. An employee may swap a shift with a colleague, work additional hours because someone is off sick, or finish earlier than originally planned. Unless these changes are recorded properly, the rota can quickly stop reflecting the hours that were actually worked.
This creates the first problem:
The planned hours and the actual hours can be different.
And it is the actual hours that matter when you come to calculate payroll.
Timesheets create another layer of administration
Once employees have completed their shifts, those hours need to be recorded and checked. For a small business, this might mean asking employees to complete a spreadsheet or paper timesheet. The business owner or manager then has to check the information, resolve discrepancies and send the final figures to whoever processes payroll.
This can become particularly time-consuming when employees work different rates, overtime or additional hours. Consider a simple example.
An employee is scheduled to work 20 hours but actually works 27.
Where did the additional seven hours come from?
Were they authorised?
Were they overtime?
Did they replace another employee?
Was the rota updated?
Was the employee paid correctly?
These questions might seem trivial when dealing with one employee. Multiply them across a workforce and every pay period can become an administrative exercise.
Then there is holiday entitlement
Holiday entitlement can be particularly difficult when employees do not work consistent hours. For eligible irregular-hours and part-year workers, statutory holiday entitlement is generally calculated based on the hours they actually work. For leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024, the statutory accrual method is generally 12.07% of hours worked in each pay period.
For example, if an eligible employee works 50 hours during a pay period:
50 hours × 12.07% = 6.035 hours of holiday accrued
This means the business needs an accurate record of the employee's actual working hours in order to calculate their holiday entitlement correctly. And this is where the different parts of workforce management start to connect.
The rota tells you what was planned.
The timesheet tells you what actually happened.
The hours worked can then feed into payroll and holiday calculations.
If these processes are managed separately, there is considerably more opportunity for mistakes.
What happens when everything is managed manually?
Many small businesses rely on a combination of spreadsheets, emails, paper records and messaging apps. The problem is not that any one of these tools is necessarily bad. The problem is that information becomes spread across multiple places.
A business owner might have:
A spreadsheet containing the rota
Paper or electronic timesheets
Holiday requests in email
Shift changes communicated through WhatsApp
Payroll information sent to the payroll provider
A separate spreadsheet tracking holiday entitlement
This creates a lot of administration. It also creates the possibility that information gets missed. An employee might have worked additional hours that were never added to the timesheet. A shift might have been changed but the rota was not updated. A holiday request might have been approved but not communicated to the person processing payroll.
The more manual the process becomes, the more dependent it is on people remembering to update every system.
The impact on business owners
For many business owners, the biggest cost is not necessarily the software or administration itself. It is time.
Time spent creating rotas.
Time spent chasing timesheets.
Time spent checking hours.
Time spent resolving discrepancies.
Time spent calculating or checking holiday entitlement.
Time spent answering employees' questions about their hours and holiday.
And, importantly, time spent correcting mistakes after payroll has already been processed.
For a business owner who is already responsible for customers, sales, staff, suppliers and finances, workforce administration can become a significant distraction.
There is also a wider business risk. If records are inaccurate, it can become difficult to demonstrate exactly how employees' hours, pay and holiday entitlement were calculated.
Good record keeping is therefore not just an administrative convenience. It is an important part of running a well-managed business.
Could a cloud-based workforce management system help?
This is where cloud-based workforce management software can make a significant difference. Instead of keeping rotas, timesheets and holiday information in separate systems, a cloud-based platform can bring these processes together.
A manager can create the rota online and employees can access it from their phone.
Employees can then record their actual working hours, giving the business a clear record of what happened rather than relying solely on the original rota. If an employee works different hours from those originally scheduled, the change can be recorded rather than being lost in a text message or handwritten note. Holiday requests can also be managed within the same system, giving managers and employees a much clearer view of leave.
Most importantly, the information is stored centrally. That means the business owner, manager, employee and payroll provider can work from the same underlying information.
Connecting workforce management with payroll
For businesses with irregular-hours employees, this connection can be particularly valuable. Accurate working-time information provides a much stronger foundation for payroll processing and holiday calculations.
Rather than asking:
"What hours did everyone work this month?"
The payroll process can start with a record that has already been created and approved. That can reduce the amount of manual data entry and checking required before payroll is processed. It can also make it easier to identify unusual hours, overtime or discrepancies before they become payroll problems.
Cloud-based means you are not tied to the office
Another major advantage is accessibility. Because the system is cloud-based, the business owner or manager does not necessarily need to be sitting in front of the office computer to manage staff.
Rotas can be reviewed and updated remotely. Employees can access their shifts from their phones. Holiday requests can be submitted without having to find a paper form or send an email. For businesses where employees are working across different locations, this can be particularly useful.
The aim is not simply to replace a spreadsheet with another piece of software. The real benefit comes from bringing the different parts of workforce management together.
Ready to take the hassle out of managing irregular hours?
Managing rotas, timesheets, holiday and payroll separately can create unnecessary work and increase the risk of errors. A cloud-based approach can bring these processes together, giving you better visibility of your workforce while reducing the administration involved in running payroll.
LL Payroll & Consultancy Services can help you identify where your current process could be improved and, where appropriate, introduce technology that connects workforce management with payroll.
If you would like to see how this could work for your business, get in touch with LL Payroll for an informal discussion.
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