HR

Navigate to: Menu > Staff & Payroll > HR

Overview

HR is where you keep a record of everyone who works at your venue, from box office and front of house staff to stage management, technicians, wardrobe and casual crew. From here you can add staff, record holiday and sickness, log activity, schedule shifts for performances, get-ins and get-outs, track clocked hours and pull the figures you need for payroll.

HR Files and Forms, also in the Staff & Payroll menu, are covered in their own articles.

The HR page

The HR page lists all your staff. The buttons along the top are:

●      Start Shift: Clock yourself in at the start of your shift

●      Shift Report: Open the shift report so you can filter clocked shifts by date for payroll

●      Approvals: Review time off requests waiting for a decision

●      Add User: Add a new staff member

●      Search, Column visibility and CSV: Find a staff member, choose which columns to show, or export the list to a spreadsheet

The staff list shows First Name, Last Name, Job Title and Days Left, which is how many days of holiday allowance the staff member has left. Beside each person are the Shifts, Activity and Time Off buttons, and the Time Off button also shows their remaining days. You will also see a Schedule button for booking them onto shifts.

Add a new staff member

●      Go to Staff & Payroll > HR

●      Click Add User in the top right corner

●      Enter their First Name, Last Name, Email and Job Title, for example Box Office Assistant, Front of House Supervisor or Deputy Stage Manager

●      Timeoff Allowance: Enter the number of days holiday they are entitled to

●      Select Role: Choose the role that controls what they can see and do in Backstage Manager

●      Reports To: Choose their manager, for example the Front of House Manager for ushers or the Box Office Manager for box office staff

●      Start Date: Choose the date they start with you

●      Click Add User to save

A note on the Add User window reminds you that managers can accept or reject requests and view this user’s information, so set Reports To carefully.

The staff profile

Click on any staff member in the list to open their profile, where you can view and update all of their information. Along the top of the profile are the Time Off, Activity, Schedule, Shifts, Save and Remove buttons. Always click Save after making changes. Remove deletes the staff member.

Photo

●      Upload a photo of the staff member so managers and colleagues can recognise them, which is helpful for large casual front of house teams

Basic Info

●      First Name and Last Name 1: The staff member’s name

●      Last Name 2: An optional second surname, if they use one

●      Phone and Email: Their contact details

●      Job Title: Their role at the venue, for example Chief Electrician, Wardrobe Assistant or Duty Manager

Company Info

●      Department: The team they belong to, for example Box Office, Front of House, Stage Management, Technical, Wardrobe or Marketing

●      Location: Where they usually work, for example the main house, the studio theatre or the box office

●      Start Date and End Date: When their employment starts and, if relevant, ends, for example at the end of a pantomime season or a production contract

●      Reports To: The manager or managers this person reports to. These are the people who receive and approve their time off requests

●      Holiday Allowance: The number of holiday days they are entitled to

●      Employment Type: Choose Administrator or Employee. A staff member set as Employee cannot edit or save changes to their own profile, which is useful for casual and seasonal staff

●      Role: The permissions role that controls what they can access in Backstage Manager

●      Select Employee Status: Their current hiring status, which is Hired, Onboarding, Active or Terminated

●      Daily Overview Email: Switch On or Off to control whether this person receives the daily overview email

When you set a staff member’s status to Terminated, two extra fields appear: Termination Date and Termination Reason, which you choose from a dropdown list. This keeps your records accurate and makes internal reporting clearer.

Working Info

●      Working Start Time: The time their working day usually starts, for example 09:00 for office staff

●      Working Hours: How many hours they usually work

●      Working Days: Which days of the week they usually work. The field shows how many days are selected, for example 5 items selected

●      Billable Rate / Hour: The hourly rate you charge for this person’s time, for example when you recharge crew hours to a visiting company as part of a settlement

●      Cost Rate / Hour: What this person costs you per hour, used for payroll and budgeting

●      Day, Start Time and End Time: A table with a row for each day from Monday to Sunday where you can set their usual start and end times. This suits regular patterns, such as box office opening hours. Leave days they don’t work at 00:00

Assigned Info

●      Bookings: Link the staff member to specific events or performances they are assigned to, for example the performances they are working on as an usher or the get-in they are crewing

Custom Fields

●      Any custom fields you have set up for staff appear here. See Custom fields for staff below

Files

●      Upload File: Upload important documents to the staff member’s profile, such as contracts, payslips, passports, driving licences and certificates, for example first aid or working at height. Files are stored securely and keep their original names so they are easy to find

●      E-sign: Send a document, such as an employment contract, to the staff member to sign electronically

●      When nothing has been uploaded yet, the section shows No Files Found

Activity

Use activities to record things a staff member needs to do or attend, for example an induction, a fire safety briefing, a costume fitting or a technical rehearsal call.

●      Open the staff member’s profile, or find them in the staff list

●      Click Activity, then New

●      Enter the Activity Name

●      Click Show advanced options if you need to add more detail, such as dates and times

●      Click Add Activity

To see a staff member’s activities, click Activity, then View. The Upcoming Activity window lists each activity with its Name, Start and End. Click Previous Activities to see past ones. If there is nothing booked, you will see Employee currently has no future activities.

Time off

Add time off for a staff member

●      Click Time Off on the staff member’s profile or in the staff list

●      Timeoff Type: Choose the type, for example Time Off for holiday, Sick or Other

●      Reason: Add a short note

●      Choose the Start Date and End Date

●      Click Add Timeoff

View time off

●      Click Time Off, then View

●      The Upcoming Timeoff window lists each request with its Type, Reason, Approval, Manager Reason, Start, End and Duration

●      Click Previous Timeoff to see past time off

●      If nothing is booked, you will see Employee currently has no future timeoff

Request and approve time off

●      Staff request time off using the Manage Time-Off option

●      A message confirms that the application has been sent to their manager for approval

●      The manager, set in Reports To, receives an email showing who is asking for time off, the dates, the total number of holiday days requested and how many days they have remaining

●      The manager approves or declines the request and enters a reason in the Manager Reason field

●      Make sure the manager’s note is entered during the approval or decline step. It is then visible in the time off record

See time off on the calendar

●      Time off also appears on the calendar in Calendar & Scheduling

●      View time off for all staff, or use the Employee filter to choose one person and click Update

●      This gives you an overview of planned leave, so you can check you have enough cover for a run of performances before you approve more holiday

Shifts

Clock in and out

●      Open your own profile. Start Shift appears at the top, along with your status, for example You Are Currently Clocked Out

●      Click Start Shift to clock in when you arrive, for example at your front of house call

●      A green bar shows when your shift started. The status changes to You Are Currently Clocked In

●      Click End Shift to clock out when you are done, for example once the house is cleared after the show

●      Click My Shifts to see your shift history. You can export your shifts to a spreadsheet

Your profile window also holds your First Name, Last Name, Email, Password, your organisation and your Timezone. Clock in and clock out times follow the time zone set here. After changing your time zone, log out and log back in for the change to take effect.

Edit a shift

●      Admins can correct shift start and end times, for example when someone forgot to clock out after the evening performance

●      Go to Staff & Payroll > HR and select the staff member

●      Click Shifts to open their shift list, which shows Shift Start and Shift End

●      Click the edit icon next to the time or date you need to change, update it, and tick to confirm

Schedule shifts

Managers can schedule staff onto shifts directly in HR, and the staff member is notified automatically.

●      Go to Staff & Payroll > HR

●      Click the Schedule button beside the staff member you want to schedule

●      Select the date and time of the shift, for example a 18:45 front of house call for a 19:30 performance, or an 08:00 get-in

●      Click Save

●      The staff member automatically receives a notification that they have been scheduled for that shift

View scheduled shifts

●      From the staff list, click View Shifts, or on the profile click Schedule, then View, to see all upcoming and past shifts for that staff member

●      You can also see all shifts on the calendar in Calendar & Scheduling, which is the easiest way to manage the whole team for a performance or a week of the run

●      Scheduled shifts are visible to both the manager and the staff member

Create the shift notification email

You can design the email staff receive when they are scheduled for a shift.

●      Go to Email & Promotions > Template Designs

●      Click Add Email Design

●      In the editor, add a Text Box to your email

●      Open the Merge tags menu and choose Notification Schedule

●      Select the details you want to include: First Name, Last Name, Email, Time, Name and Note

●      Save your design

The Merge tags menu also includes Contact Tags, Notification Activity, Notification Time Off and Notification Time Off Answer, which you can use to build emails for activities and time off decisions.

●      Once your design is saved, go to settings and choose it in the Schedule Notification field. This is the email that will be sent whenever a shift is scheduled

Payroll reporting

●      Click Shift Report at the top of the HR page to open your shifts and filter them by date, for example by pay period or by production

●      You can also go to Budgeting & Settlements > Shifts Report. See the Shifts Report article for more detail

●      Use the hours worked alongside each person’s Cost Rate / Hour when preparing payroll, and their Billable Rate / Hour when recharging crew costs to a visiting company

Custom fields for staff

If you need to track details that aren’t on the profile as standard, you can add your own fields. They then appear in the Custom Fields section of every staff profile.

●      Go to settings and find the custom field options

●      Enter a name in one of the custom field boxes: Custom Field 1 Name, Custom Field 2 Name and Custom Field 3 Name for text, Custom Date 1 Name for a date, and Custom Date Time 1 Name for a date and time

●      Beside each field are switches that control where it appears: Available Online? for your online booking pages, Available Back Office? for your box office screens, Available Contact Info? for contact records, and Available Employee Info? for staff profiles

●      Switch on Available Employee Info? for any field you want on staff profiles

●      Examples for theatre staff: Staff ID Number, Emergency Contact, First Aid Certificate Expiry or Background Check Expiry

Recruiting staff

You can run your hiring process on a pipeline, moving candidates through stages from application to offer. This works well for seasonal recruitment, such as front of house teams for panto or box office staff ahead of a busy season.

Create a recruitment pipeline

●      Go to Acts & Performers > Pipelines

●      Click Boards in the top left, then Add Board

●      Enter a name, for example Front of House Recruitment or Technical Hiring

●      Choose the card template to use for this pipeline

●      Click Add Board

●      Switch between pipelines at any time by clicking Boards in the top left and choosing the one you want

Add stages

●      Click Add Stage

●      Name the stage, for example Applications Received, Phone Screening, First Interview, Second Interview, Final Interview or Offer Extended, and click Add Stage

●      Repeat for each stage in your hiring process

Add and move candidates

●      Click Add Card to add a candidate

●      Enter the candidate’s name or the role they applied for

●      Use the dropdown to choose which stage they are at

●      To add candidate details, click +Add Custom Field, choose the stage the field applies to, choose the type of field, for example Interview Notes, Start Date or CV Upload, fill in the details and click Add Card

●      Drag and drop the card to move the candidate from one stage to the next

Edit or remove a candidate

●      Click into a card to view or edit its details, make your changes and click Save

●      Use Upload File on the card to attach a CV, cover letter or portfolio, for example a designer’s or scenic artist’s portfolio

●      Add activities to the card to keep notes, for example Reference Check Complete or Trial Shift Booked

●      To remove a candidate, click into the card and click Remove in the top right

Delete a stage

●      Click Remove in the top right of the stage

●      Click Delete Stage to confirm

●      Deleting a stage also deletes every card in it, so move any candidates you want to keep first

Card templates for recruitment

●      Click Card Templates, then Add Template

●      Add the fields you want on every candidate card, for example candidate name, role applied for, contact number, interview date and interview feedback

●      Click Create Template to save

●      To change a template, go to Card Templates and click Edit. You can change field types, add or remove fields and choose what shows on the front of the card

Link a candidate to a contact

●      In Card Templates, add a Linked Contact Field to your template

●      When adding a card, click Add Contact

●      Add a new contact, or choose an existing one from your contacts in Contacts & Relationships

Notify your hiring team automatically

●      Edit or create your card template and add the Card Assignee field

●      Assign the people who should hear about each candidate, for example the Front of House Manager and the Duty Managers who interview

●      Go to Email & Promotions > Template Designs and create the email to send when a card moves stage

●      Go to Acts & Performers > Pipelines and click Manage Automation

●      Click Add Workflowte and choose Time After Board Movement

●      Choose the pipeline, set the timing and select your email template, then save

●      Assigned staff now receive an email automatically whenever a candidate moves stage. See the Automation article for more on automations

Tips

●      Set Reports To for every staff member so time off requests always reach the right manager

●      Set casual and seasonal staff as Employee so they can’t change their own details or rates

●      Check the calendar for booked leave before you schedule shifts for a busy run

●      Keep Cost Rate / Hour up to date so your payroll and settlement figures are accurate