Merit Hour Overview¶
Merit Hours
In some situations, it may be desirable to adjust volunteer hours to reflect more or fewer hours than were actually served. The optional merit hours feature allows an organization to do so.
For example, merit hours can be used to give "time-and-a-half" or "double time" for special reasons, such as volunteer Assignments that are more complex or difficult to recruit for; shifts that take place on a holiday; to account for additional drive or preparation time; or to deduct time spent at lunch or on break.
By defining up to four merit hour rules, which can be based on a broad range of volunteer and service characteristics, a Volgistics System Operator can apply merit hours as needed. Merit hours can also be based on drive or travel times separately from the four merit hour rules. If merit hours are used, Volgistics automatically calculates the additional or deducted time indicated by the merit hour rules.
These adjusted hours appear on the Service tab in volunteer records by default, and optionally on reports under the heading Merit hours. Volgistics continues to track actual volunteer hours separately as well. Merit hours are tracked as the regular hours plus or minus the additional hours. For example, if a volunteer worked four hours, and a merit hour rule gave double time, they'd receive four regular hours and eight merit hours (the four regular hours plus the four additional hours).
Merit hours can be included on reports regardless of whether or not they are included on the Service tab in the volunteer record.