Working hours are not one size fits all
In any company past a certain size, working hours differ by department. The warehouse opens at 7 to receive deliveries, the office starts at 9, field reps keep flexible hours, and the sales team works Saturdays. If your attendance system knows one schedule for everyone, everybody outside it comes out late or earns overtime they did not work — and somebody spends every month fixing the sheet by hand.
The idea in a minute
Each setting resolves on its own from the nearest level where it is set. So an employee with only a start time set takes that time and inherits everything else from their department or the company — they do not lose the department's other settings.
How it works
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1. Three levels, the nearest one wins
You set the policy at company level as the baseline, override it on a department when it differs, and on an employee when they are an exception. An employee takes their own setting first, then their department's, then the company's. No duplication and no conflict — the nearest one wins.
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2. Each setting inherits on its own
This is the part that matters. If you give an employee a different start time only, they take that time — while working hours, weekend days and overtime rules keep coming from their department unchanged. One exception does not wipe out the rest of the policy, and that is what prevents silent mistakes.
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3. Weekend days per department
The weekend is not the same across companies, or across departments. One takes Friday and Saturday, another Friday only, another rests midweek. A department's rest day is not counted as absence, and work on it is treated as overtime at its own rate — instead of a whole team showing up absent every week.
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4. Lateness: a start time and a grace period
Lateness needs two things: a start time, and a grace period before someone counts as late. Both are set per department or per employee. And if there is no start time at all — field reps judged by the job, not the clock — there is no lateness tracking for them, which is more honest than inventing a time and forgiving it.
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5. Overtime at its different rates
An overtime hour on a normal day is not the same as one on the weekly rest day, a public holiday or a night shift. Zemam separates those types, each with its own rate, set per department or employee. And if you set only the public-holiday rate for someone, they take that and keep the rest of the rates from their department.
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6. Some departments do not earn overtime
Senior management, or roles on an all-inclusive salary, do not earn overtime. Rather than relying on someone remembering not to count it, you switch overtime off on the department or the person and payroll honours it. The decision is recorded once instead of being reviewed every month.
In short
Employee → department → company. The nearest wins, and each setting inherits on its own.
Weekend days per department — so no team shows up absent every week.
A start time and grace period per department; with no start time, no lateness tracking at all.
Different overtime rates for normal, weekend, holiday and night — and you can switch it off for a whole department.
Real examples
The warehouse opens early
The warehouse starts at 7 and the office at 9. Without a per-department policy the whole warehouse team looks like they leave early, or the whole office looks late — and both are wrong.
An employee on agreed hours
Someone you agreed different hours with for personal reasons. You set only their time, and the rest of their department's policy still applies to them.
A department that works Saturdays
Sales work Saturdays and nobody else does. The department's weekend is set separately, so Saturday is an ordinary working day for them and not overtime — and the reverse for everyone else.
Reps judged by the job, not the clock
A field rep works on the road and nobody judges them by when they reach the office. With no start time set, no lateness is computed for them at all.
Related reading
Fixing the attendance sheet by hand every month?
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