The first 15 minutes
- Check the schedule and your messages: was the shift changed, swapped, or did they tell you they'd be late?
- Call, then message. Ask if they're OK and whether they're coming.
- If you can't reach them and you're worried, try their emergency contact if you have one.
- Decide by a set time (for example 15 minutes after start) that you're covering the shift without them.
Covering the shift
| Option | Check first |
|---|---|
| Ask someone off today to come in | Their hours that week and their availability; it's a request, not an order |
| Ask someone on shift to stay later | Their hours that day and week, and when they last had a break |
| Move someone from a quieter station | That the role they leave still has what it needs |
| Cover it yourself | That the rest of your job can wait |
| Run lighter: close a station, shorten hours | What customers will notice, and telling them early |
Check skills as well as numbers: if the missing person was the only key holder or the only person on the bar, a replacement needs to do that job. The key holder and skills matrix shows who can. Tell whoever steps in exactly what changed, using the schedule change notice templates if it helps.
Recording it
- The shift, the time you noticed, and each attempt to contact them.
- Who covered, from when to when.
- What they said when you reached them, in their words, without guessing reasons.
- Pay the people who worked the cover for the hours they worked, recorded like any other shift.
Afterwards
Talk to the person once things are calm. Find out what happened before deciding anything, and follow your written attendance policy. If it was a misunderstanding about the schedule, fix how the schedule reaches people. If someone is regularly hard to reach, a coverage request process for shifts people know they can't make in advance can prevent the next one.
In Zchedule
- Coverage requests are for an employee's own shift that hasn't started. Once it has, the manager changes the schedule directly.
- A manager can mark the shift Absent or No Show in attendance, so it reads correctly in timesheets and exports.
- Edit the shift to the person covering and publish; the people whose shifts changed are notified if they have notifications on.
- With the time clock, a missed clock-in is visible soon after the shift starts.