Attendance, shift and leave process for Online Course Companies: timesheets by course for freelancers, mentors and launch weeks
With remote staff, freelancers and live classes, attendance means knowing who worked on what and who covers which session. A simple timesheet by course answers both.
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Share your requirementsWhy attendance, shift and leave process matters in online course companies
Online teams rarely clock in. Mentors join live doubt sessions, editors send files at night and freelancers report hours by chat. Finance then struggles to tell which course a cost belongs to, and managers cannot see that a mentor is covering three batches. Leave is requested over messages and gets lost.
A light process works better than a heavy one. One shared timesheet with a line per person per day, by course and activity. A roster for live sessions with a named backup. A leave calendar that everyone can see. These are enough to plan launch weeks and to pay hourly people the right amount.
How to set it up
1. Build one shared timesheet
Columns for date, person, course, activity and hours. Freelancers and part-time mentors fill it daily; managers review it every week.
2. Create a roster for live sessions
List every live class, doubt session and review call with the lead and a named backup. Publish it at least a week ahead.
3. Keep a visible leave calendar
All leave and unavailable days on one calendar, with a rule for how early to ask during launch weeks.
4. Plan launch weeks as a separate calendar
Two to three weeks before a launch, agree who works extra hours, who takes time off afterwards and which freelancers are called in.
5. Check hours against output monthly
Compare hours logged per course with lessons delivered, and talk to managers where the two seem far apart.
Check these first
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These take an afternoon and use your own records.
- Take one freelancer and match the hours billed last month to the courses they worked on.
- Check whether each live session has a named backup.
- Look at the leave calendar for the next launch and see whether the key people are all present.
- Ask a mentor how they would tell you how many hours they worked last week.
GullyHR can do this with you. Read how we approach attendance, shift and leave process in general, or share your requirements and we will tell you where to start.
Questions owners ask
Not to start. A shared sheet that people fill daily is enough for most teams. Choose tools later, once you know what you want to see. Our work here is on the process and not on selecting software.
Agree in advance who will work extra, how it will be recognised and when time off follows. Without that, the same few people carry every launch and leave after a few seasons.
Ask for entries by course and activity, review them weekly with the course manager and compare with deliverables. Differences are for discussion, not for suspicion, but they should be looked at.