What is surge pay? Surge bonuses for shift work

Surge bonus meaning

A surge bonus is the extra amount attached to a surge shift. If a 7-hour line-cook shift pays $19.50 an hour, the base is $136.50. Add a +$30 surge bonus and the person who takes it earns $166.50. The bonus belongs to the shift, not the person, so it is no longer on offer once the shift is filled.

Ride-hailing and delivery apps made the word familiar: prices or pay rise when demand is high and supply is low. In shift work it means the same thing: the shifts nobody wants pay a little more until somebody wants them.

Surge pay vs premium pay vs shift differential

	Surge pay	Premium pay / shift differential
What sets it	How hard one shift is to fill	A standing rule (nights, weekends, holidays)
Applies to	A single shift	Every shift that matches the rule
Changes	Can rise as the start gets closer	Fixed until the policy changes
Usually shown as	A flat amount, for example +$30	A higher rate or multiplier, for example 1.5×

Many teams use both: a night differential in the pay policy, and surge on top for the one night shift that still has no one on it.

When surge pay makes sense

• Late call-outs. Someone drops a shift inside the notice window and you need cover today.
• Unpopular slots. Early openings, late closes, Sundays and public holidays.
• Busy periods. Seasonal peaks, events and promotions that need extra hands.
• Sister-store cover. Making it worth the trip for crew from another of your stores.

It works best as an exception. If the same shift needs surge every week, the base rate or the schedule probably needs a look.

How surge pay works in ShiftFlex

Surge is a flat bonus on top of the shift's pay, whether the shift is hourly, flat-rate or paid per unit. Crew see it as a +$ badge on the shift card, with the full breakdown (hours × rate, surge, total) before they claim. The Shifts tab has a Surge filter so crew can find those shifts first.

Adding surge alerts qualified crew straight away. A surge bonus doesn't bypass anything: crew still need the job role and valid certificates for the shift, and the usual overlap and overtime checks still apply.

Adding surge as a manager

1. When posting: in Post shift, turn on Surge bonus and set the amount in $5 steps.
2. On one open shift: open it and tap Add surge (or Change surge). Set the amount to zero to remove it.
3. On every open shift at once: on Today, tap Add surge and pick the amount.

Approval for bigger bonuses

Organisations can set an approval limit and a monthly surge budget. Surge above the limit waits in Approvals for an owner or admin before crew see it, and surge that would go over the month's budget isn't applied.

Automatic surge rules (rolling out)

ShiftFlex can raise surge on its own as an open shift gets close to its start, for example +15% of base pay at 24 hours, +30% at 12 hours and +50% at 4 hours, always within the budget. Automatic surge only ever goes up; it never lowers an amount a manager set. The settings for these rules are coming to the manager app.

Once a shift is claimed

Surge can be changed only while the shift is open and hasn't started. Once someone is on it, the bonus they saw is the bonus they get paid.

Surge in pay and payroll

Surge shows as its own line in crew earnings and in Payroll, next to hours, overtime, tips and expenses. The pay-period CSV export uses the same lines, so the export always matches what crew saw.