Workforce management glossary
Working definitions for the terms used across Inside product, industry and resource pages.
- Actual hours
- The time recorded through attendance or approved adjustments.
- Attendance exception
- A difference or missing record that requires review, such as a late clock-in, early clock-out or missing clock event.
- Auto-Match
- Compares clock-ins with the scheduled shift and matches time that falls within the variance tolerance, so only late arrivals, missing clock-outs and overtime need a manager.
- Base manning
- The minimum number of people each role needs per day or period at an outlet. Coverage in the Shift Planner is checked against it.
- Casual workforce
- Workers engaged flexibly or for specific shifts, including internal casual pools and external agency workers depending on the organisation.
- Coverage
- How filled roster slots compare with base manning for each role and day, shown as Covered, Partial, Open or Over before the roster is published.
- Day pass
- What a casual worker gets in the Inside casual app for a confirmed shift. They clock in with it, or a manager scans them in by QR at the outlet.
- Deskless worker
- An employee whose work is primarily carried out away from a desk, such as a hotel, restaurant, retail, care, event or facilities employee.
- Employee scheduling
- The process of assigning employees to shifts, roles, locations and times.
- Frontline workforce
- Employees directly delivering an organisation's service or operations, often through shift-based work.
- HRIS
- Human Resource Information System: software used to organise employee records and HR workflows.
- Labour demand forecasting
- Estimating the workforce needed from expected operating demand such as occupancy, covers, reservations, footfall or events.
- Labour requirement
- The roles and hours a shift needs, set from base manning and demand drivers such as covers, room nights or events.
- Linked outlet
- An outlet set up to share staff with another, so trained staff can be borrowed for a shift without a second profile. Their hours stay with the outlet they worked at.
- Pay group
- Employees paid together on the same cycle, such as monthly staff or hourly part-timers. Regular pay runs are drafted for each pay group's cycle.
- Payroll readiness
- The state in which hours, overtime, allowances and relevant exceptions have been reviewed and prepared for downstream payroll processing.
- Roster
- A schedule showing which employees are assigned to work by date, time, role or location.
- Schedule Autorun
- Applies roster templates on a set schedule, so the next roster draft is ready before the manager starts.
- Scheduled hours
- The time an employee was planned to work.
- Shift swap
- A structured request for one employee to exchange or transfer a scheduled shift according to organisation rules.
- Shift-to-pay
- The whole life of a shift in one record: the demand that creates it, the roster, the person who works it, attendance, the confirmed timesheet and the pay or agency invoice. Read the guide.
- Smart Fill
- Rules-based automation in the Shift Planner that drafts open slots using role eligibility, approved leave, employment-type hour limits and rest rules. It never publishes on its own; managers review and publish.
- Time and attendance
- The process of recording when employees start, finish and take relevant breaks.
- Timesheet
- A reviewed record of worked time used for approval, payroll preparation or reporting.
- Variance tolerance
- How far actual time can differ from the scheduled shift and still match automatically. It is set for the organisation and can be overridden per outlet.
- Workforce management
- The processes and software used to plan, schedule, track and manage employees and labour activity.
- Workforce Operating System
- A connected platform that links scheduling, attendance, employee records, leave, timesheets, mobile self-service and payroll workflows.
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