Available for the following plans: Lite, Plus, Unlimited HR, Unlimited HR+Payroll
Time & Attendance Add-on
Available for the following user access levels: Admin

By default, all breaks in Employment Hero are unpaid — the break duration is deducted from an employee's total paid hours. If your organisation has employees who are entitled to paid rest breaks under their award or agreement, you can enable the Paid breaks setting. Once on, managers and employees can mark each break as a paid rest break or an unpaid meal break, and the distinction flows through automatically to timesheet totals and payroll.

How paid and unpaid breaks work

Break types explained

When Paid breaks is enabled, every break on a shift or timesheet is one of two types:

Paid break (rest break) — the break duration is included in the employee's total paid hours.
Unpaid break (meal break) — the break duration is deducted from the employee's total paid hours.

All breaks default to unpaid when added. Managers or employees must actively mark a break as paid where it applies.

Helpful Hint

Example: an employee works an 8-hour shift with 1 × 30-minute paid rest break and 2 × 15-minute unpaid meal breaks. The two meal breaks are deducted from paid hours; the rest break is not. Total paid hours = 7 hrs 30 mins.

Configure paid breaks settings

Note

If your organisation is connected to the payroll platform, paid break settings are managed there and automatically sync through to Employment Hero. This ensures your break settings stay consistent across both systems. Refer to your payroll platform settings to enable and configure paid breaks.

Enable paid breaks

Log into Employment Hero.
On the left-hand side menu, click Settings.
Click Timesheets.
Select the Configure timesheet settings tab.
Scroll down to the Breaks section.
Toggle Paid breaks on.
Click Save.

Paid and unpaid break options will now appear for managers when creating or editing shifts and timesheets, and for employees when clocking via the EH Work app or HeroTimeClock kiosk.

Helpful Hint

To disable paid breaks, toggle Paid breaks off and save. The controls will be hidden from all surfaces. Existing break records retain their paid/unpaid status, but it will no longer be displayed.

Set a maximum paid break duration

You can set a cap on how long a paid rest break can be. Any break time beyond the cap is automatically treated as unpaid. This prevents employees from claiming unlimited paid break time on unscheduled shifts.

In the Breaks section of Configure timesheet settings, toggle Maximum paid break duration on.
Enter the cap in minutes (for example, 30).
Click Save.

Helpful Hint

Example: cap is set to 30 minutes, and an employee takes a 45-minute paid break. The first 30 minutes is treated as paid; the remaining 15 minutes is treated as unpaid. If no cap is set, the full duration of any paid break is included in paid hours.

How paid breaks flow through to payroll

Once a timesheet with paid breaks is approved, Employment Hero includes the paid break duration in the employee's total paid hours when the pay run is processed. No manual adjustment is needed after the pay run.

Scenario	Paid hours result (8-hour shift)
1 × 30-min paid break, 2 × 15-min unpaid breaks	7 hrs 30 mins (meal breaks deducted; rest break included)
All breaks unpaid	7 hrs (all break time deducted)
45-min paid break, 30-min cap set	30 mins paid + 15 mins treated as unpaid

Explore related content

Create, publish, and edit shifts — mark breaks as paid or unpaid when building your roster.
Adding, editing and deleting timesheets — mark breaks as paid or unpaid when creating or editing a timesheet entry.