There may be times when you see the "Missing Meal Break" warning for an employee's time card, despite the employee having taken a meal break. This is generally due to the employee qualifying for the manual meal break multiple times in their work day.
What is Happening
In the example below, we have an employee who has worked a 10-hour workday, taken a meal break, and have a "Missing Meal Break" warning.
Looking at the "Manual Meal Break" policy setting, we can see that a manual meal break is expected to be taken for every 4H 59M worked, which has been reached twice with an 11-hour work day.
What Can You Do
Depending on your needs and expectations, there are a couple of options that can be done.
Consult Legal Counsel
If you are unsure of how the "Manual Meal Break" option should be set up or what is expected for your region/union, it is advised to consult with your legal counsel prior to setting up or making any changes/decisions.
- Ignore the "Missing Meal Break" warning. The "Missing Meal Break" indicator is merely to let you know that an expected meal break is missing. While it cannot be removed, it will not affect other parts of the system such as AccountLinx exports, reporting, etc. If rules/regulations in your area allow employees to forgo a meal break, then it may be best to find a way to track if an employee has decided to skip a meal break.
- Manually Enter the Meal Break. If the employee did take a meal break, then you can add the meal break in when it should have occurred.
- Adjust the Manual Meal Break Policy. If you believe that the manual meal break setting is incorrectly set up, you can adjust it to fit your region's rules/regulations. If you are unsure what it should be set to, please consult your legal counsel.