They pick up the leftovers
Workers see their week, claim open shifts they’re qualified for, and swap with teammates. Managers approve. Same rules as Auto-Fill — including posted-shift premiums.
What is shift self-service?
Self-service lets hourly staff act on their own schedule — picking up an open shift, offering one they cannot work, submitting availability, requesting time off — instead of routing every change through a manager’s phone. The hard part is not the interface: it is making sure a self-served change still respects qualifications, hour caps and the compliance rules that apply to a manager-made change.
Claiming an open shift
A worker sees the open shifts they are actually eligible for and requests one; it lands in a manager approval queue. Approval runs as a single transaction, so two managers approving at the same moment cannot both assign the shift or double-book the ledger.
Workers only see shifts they qualify for and are available to work Approval is transactional — concurrent approvals cannot collide Approving an already-posted shift books the premium it owes, once Deleting a shift auto-declines any claims still pending on it Cover-listed leftovers stay on the venue board — extra hands are not sent
Swaps that stay honest about predictability pay
A worker offers their shift; a qualified teammate asks for it; a manager approves. The shift reassigns and its published baseline moves with it, and because the hand-off was voluntary it deliberately owes no predictability premium. That carve-out is guarded rather than assumed.
Only the shift’s current holder can offer it for swap A stale offer left by a previous holder cannot launder a reassignment Offers are cleared when a manager reassigns, in the service and the rules Both parties are notified when the swap is approved
The rest of the worker surface
Their own week
A mobile-first view of the shifts they are actually working, with a good-faith estimate of the hours they can expect.
One-tap clock-in
The next shift surfaces with a punch window and a countdown, so clocking in is one tap rather than a hunt.
Earned so far
What they have earned this period, priced at the wage in force on each punch, with overtime separated from straight pay.
Availability and time off
Workers submit their own availability and request PTO, unpaid or sick leave; approved time off becomes a hard scheduling constraint.
Offering hours to part-timers first
Where access-to-hours rules apply, Sofia ranks active, qualified part-timers by how far under their target they are and offers open shifts to them before new hires. Every offer is recorded, so the practice is evidenced rather than asserted.
Part-timers under target are offered hours first, worst shortfall first Offers appear in the worker’s own view as offered to them A publish-time nudge when open shifts have not been offered Every offer lands in the compliance export with who received it
Questions, answered
Can a worker claim a shift they are not qualified for?
They will not be shown it, and the manager queue flags a qualification or overlap concern if one is somehow requested. Manager approval is the final gate on every claim.
If a shift is listed on Cover, can staff still claim it?
Yes. Cover is not a live pool. Listing records that the venue needed extra hands; nobody is sent. The shift stays open for qualified staff to request, and a manager still approves.
Does a swap trigger predictability pay?
No. A voluntary hand-off between workers is exempt, so Sofia reassigns the shift and re-baselines it without writing a ledger event. A manager-initiated reassignment is a different case and does accrue.
Can a dangling swap offer be used to dodge a premium?
No, and this was hardened deliberately. Only the shift’s current holder can offer it, offers are cleared when a shift is reassigned, and the current-holder check is enforced in the service, the eligibility helper and the security rules.
What happens to pending claims if the shift is deleted?
They are auto-declined, so a worker is never left waiting on a request against a shift that no longer exists.
Do workers see each other’s pay?
No. Pay, email and date of birth live in a separate manager-gated record; an unauthorised reader does not receive them at all. A worker sees their own earnings, not anyone else’s.
Is there a native mobile app?
Not today. The worker surface is a mobile-first web experience that works in a phone browser, and web push is available if the worker opts in. There is no app-store native app, and we would rather list that on the roadmap than imply otherwise.
Explore more of Sofia
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