Time-Out Zone

Work schedule types that leave math respects

Pick the working weekdays for each person, team, or location. Requests, accruals, and calendars skip the days that are not worked, whether the week is Monday to Friday, four days, or Sunday to Thursday.

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The week is changing

92%

of companies in the 2022 UK four-day-week pilot kept the shorter week

65%

fewer sick days during the same six-month trial

7

weekday toggles per schedule; any non-empty combination works

6

levels a schedule can live on, from company default to a single person

  • The four-day week went from experiment to policy for 56 of 61 pilot companies. A leave system that counts only working days keeps that switch from breaking anyone's balance.
  • Flexible work schedules only work when the day counting follows them. Here the schedule drives request charging, accrual, and presence.

UK four-day-week pilot, June to December 2022, 61 companies and about 2,900 employees; results reported by Autonomy with University of Cambridge and Boston College researchers. Rounded.

Seven toggles per person

A work schedule is the set of weekdays someone works, picked as simple Mon to Sun toggles. The default is Monday to Friday until you say otherwise.

Four-day and compressed weeks

Turn Friday off and requests stop charging Fridays, daily accrual stops counting them, and calendars mark them as non-working. The annual entitlement itself stays whatever the policy says.

Weeks that do not end on Friday

Any combination of days works, including Sunday to Thursday. A Friday-to-Sunday request against that schedule charges exactly one day.

One schedule system, six levels

Set a company default, then override per location, department, team, tag, or person. The most specific level wins, person first.

The details, spelled out

Requests skip non-working days

Day counting walks the range and skips every day the schedule marks as off, so a two-week span charges only its working days.

Holidays skip too

Public holidays from the effective holiday calendar are excluded the same way, on top of the schedule.

Accrual that follows the schedule

Leave types accruing daily on a working-days basis count each person's actual working days, not a fixed five-day week.

Honest presence for managers

On manager views, scheduled days off and holidays show as non-working instead of pretending the person is available.

Values in the visuals are examples. Half days charge a flat 0.5 day; hourly requests convert at eight hours per day.

Counting

Days that count, days that don't

The schedule decides what a request costs.

  • Request charging skips non-working weekdays and public holidays automatically; skipped days are locked in the request panel so nobody pays for a Saturday.
  • Half-day requests charge 0.5 day; hourly requests convert at eight hours per day.
  • Sick-leave day counts use the same working-day logic as vacation.

Levels

One modal, six levels

Same control everywhere, clear precedence.

  • Assign a schedule on the person, tag, team, department, or location, or rely on the company default work week.
  • The most specific assignment wins: person over tag, tag over team, down to location, then the company default.
  • Every level shows whether the schedule is inherited or a direct override, and overrides can be cleared in one click.

Reality

Built for how teams actually work

Not a shift planner, and honest about it.

  • Part-time weekdays, compressed weeks, and non-Western weekends are all just day combinations.
  • Managers see non-working days as non-working in team views and calendars.
  • This is not shift planning or time tracking: no rotas, no clock-in, no hour-level rosters.

More resources

Feature

Holidays & Calendars

Feature

Departments & Teams

Feature

Grant models

Ready to get started?

Give us a call. We'll set up a four-day week for one team and show you live how request costs and accrual change.

Holidays & Calendars

Maintain and import holiday sets.

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Departments & Teams

Structure that carries policies.

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Frequently asked questions

What is a work schedule in Time Out Zone?
The set of weekdays a person works, chosen as Monday-to-Sunday toggles. It drives which days a leave request charges, how daily working-day accrual counts, and how calendars mark non-working days. In Time-Out Zone it is about days, not shifts or clock times.
Does a four-day week reduce the PTO balance?
No. The schedule changes what gets charged, not what is granted. With Fridays off, a Monday-to-Friday request charges four days instead of five, and daily working-day accrual counts four days per week. Entitlements in Time-Out Zone stay whatever the policy defines.
Can different people have different schedules?
Yes. Schedules can be set per person, tag, team, department, or location, on top of the company default, and the most specific level wins. One team can work Monday to Thursday in Time-Out Zone while everyone else keeps the standard week.
Can we run a Sunday-to-Thursday week?
Yes. Any combination of weekdays is a valid schedule, including Sunday to Thursday with Friday and Saturday off. Requests, accrual, and presence all follow that definition in Time-Out Zone, so a Friday-to-Sunday request charges exactly the one working day.
Is this shift planning or time tracking?
No. Work schedules define which weekdays count as working days for leave math and presence. Time-Out Zone does not do rotas, shift rosters, clock-in, or timesheets; hours fields on profiles are informational and do not change the day counting.
Does part-time automatically reduce the entitlement?
No. A part-time schedule changes charging and daily accrual counting, not the granted amount. If part-timers should receive fewer days, model that in the policy itself; Time-Out Zone keeps schedule and entitlement as separate, explicit decisions.