1. Employee Management
  2. Employees
  3. SuitePeople Workforce Management
  4. Managing Workforce Management Shifts
  5. Daylight Savings Times (DST)

Daylight Savings Times (DST)

There are two DST transitions: skipping an hour (clocks move forward) and repeating an hour (clocks move back)

Workforce Management correctly calculates the hours and cost of shifts that cross over a DST transition, taking into account the two transitions; however when clocks move back there are some complicated situations that need your attention, hence we added the ‘DST ambiguous report’. See more information below:

Clocks move forward

The simpler transition is skipping an hour, and Workforce Management handles this in two ways:

  1. Workforce Management does not allow you to have a shift:

    • start

    • finish

    • have break times

    • job changes

    during an hour that does not exist.

  2. The cost of a shift and length of a shift will not include the hour that is not worked.

Let's use the example of a shift going from 11pm to 7 am with no break, as this shift goes over the transition period the actual worked time will be 7 hours (rather than the standard 8).

Clocks move backward

The complicated transition is when the hour between 2 am and 3 am is repeated. If the shift does not start, end or not breaks or job changes that occur within this two-hour window a shift’s hours and cost will be calculated without any issues.

Using the 11 pm to 7 am example again, this would now be 9 hours worked instead of the standard 8 hour shift.

When there are any shift events that occur during this 2-hour window, the shift is considered ambiguous as there is more than one possible length of the shift.

If a shift started at 7pm and finished at 2:30 am, this shift could be either 7.5 or 8.5 hours long depending on which 2:30 am the employee finished at. You will need to manually confirm and correct the hours exported to payroll for these shifts.

To assist you with this process there is a new report available which will only highlight ambiguous shifts. Head to Reports > Shifts > DST ambiguous shifts, pick the day that the DST backwards transition occurred and click search for shifts, you can also download this as a CSV.

General Notices