---
source: policy_docs
audience: tenant
title: Shift Cover and Cancellation
---

# Filling an open shift

A shift is open from the moment it is published without a name against it. Open
shifts are offered in this order, and the order is not a preference — skipping a
step is what produces a rota nobody trusts:

1. Staff already rostered at that venue who are under their weekly hours.
2. Staff at other venues in the same region with the required certification.
3. The wider talent pool, filtered to those whose availability covers the window.

An offer stands for four hours during the working day, or until 9am the next
morning if it is sent after 6pm. After that it lapses and moves to the next
group. Do not hold an offer open longer in the hope of a better answer — the
person who would have taken it has usually accepted something else by then.

# Late cover

A shift falling open inside 24 hours of its start is late cover. Late cover may
be offered to all three groups at once rather than in order, because the cost of
an unfilled shift now exceeds the cost of an imperfect match.

Late cover attracts a premium of one and a half times the base rate for the
whole shift, not only the hours inside the 24-hour window.

# Cancelling a shift

Cancelling a worker's confirmed shift with less than 48 hours' notice obliges
the venue to pay four hours at the base rate, whether or not the worker is
re-deployed elsewhere. Inside 12 hours it is the full scheduled length.

This applies to cancellations the venue initiates. A shift cancelled because the
event itself was called off by the client is still a venue cancellation — the
client's decision does not transfer the cost to the worker.

# When a worker cancels

A worker withdrawing from a confirmed shift should do so as early as possible
through the app. Withdrawals inside 12 hours are recorded against the worker's
reliability, and three in a rolling quarter trigger a conversation with the
venue manager before further shifts are offered.

A withdrawal for a reason covered by the sickness or emergency provisions in the
staff handbook is not recorded against reliability. The manager records the
reason at the time; a reason supplied a week later cannot be verified and will
not be applied retrospectively.