Why is scheduling important?

A consistent and thorough system for scheduling employees can help managers ensure smoother operations, better transitions at peak times and clearer oversight of payroll costs and resource management. Scheduling employees efficiently ensures everyone has a task to complete when they are on the clock. The benefits of prioritizing employee scheduling include: 

• Maximizing worker productivity 
• Optimizing staff to reduce operational expenses 
• Reducing instances of overtime 
• Lowering employee turnover rates 
• Boosting morale by ensuring adequate support for team members 
• Avoiding instances of overstaffing or understaffing 

How you schedule your employees has a direct impact on the success of your company. Combinations of coworkers on a shift can have an effect on sales, as can the number of people working compared to the ratio of customers or level of work that needs to be addressed. When scheduling shift workers, posting a schedule online or in a public part of the office can hold employees accountable for reporting to work on time. 

The repercussions of poor scheduling

Failing to schedule employees efficiently or communicate the schedule to your team can have a lasting impact on the success of your business. The consequences of inefficient shift scheduling include: 

• Higher turnover rates: If employees feel like they’re not receiving the support they need during their shift, either due to inadequate supervision or too few people on the job, they are likely to become dissatisfied. When morale is low and employees are unhappy at work or feel undervalued, they may start looking for other positions to apply for and ultimately choose to leave your company. 
• Tardiness or no-shows: If you don’t share your schedules with sufficient notice or ensure that all staff is receiving or viewing the schedule, you are susceptible to communication errors. When there are communication problems with your schedule, staff may arrive late for a shift or not show up at all, resulting in understaffing. 
• Productivity decreases: Lack of employee resources during a shift can result in an inability to serve customers with the necessary level of care or complete work on time. Similarly, if you overstaff your business on a given shift, you’re paying workers to sit around and do nothing or simply chat with one another, which is a waste of company resources. 

Tips for scheduling employees

Making a schedule for employees is especially important when your business is open beyond standard business hours (9am-5pm), requiring staff to take varying shifts throughout the workweek. These tips can help you create a clear and effective employee schedule:

• Be considerate: Get to know your team and which shifts they can work. Understand that even if your company requires extensive flexibility, employees will appreciate you doing your best to accommodate their personal commitments outside work. Give your team adequate time off between shifts (at least 8 hours of turnaround) to ensure they are well rested, and do your best to respect your employees’ requests based on their family obligations. For example, if you have an employee with a young child who requests shift work only during hours when day care is available, avoid scheduling this individual for evening or night shifts. 
• Schedule to strengths: Build your shifts around your most reliable employees. Pair new hires with experienced supervisors and less experienced supervisors with reliable employees who are capable of performing well under minimal supervision. 
• Communicate clearly: Ensure that schedules are posted in a physical or virtual location that’s convenient for all employees. Put a system in place to alert team members to schedule changes or updates to ensure nobody misses last-minute alterations. To reach employees quickly, include your team in a WhatsApp group or Slack channel where you send notifications regarding schedule updates. 
• Plan ahead: Scheduling well in advance helps your employees maintain work-life balance and helps you budget payroll. As a general rule, you should make a schedule for employees a minimum of 14 days in advance. However, if you’re able to give more notice than this, your team can better plan their personal lives, which can improve workplace morale. 

How to create a template for scheduling employees

Managers can employ scheduling software programs or create their own using Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. These steps will help you create a spreadsheet for scheduling:

1. Open your spreadsheet program and create a blank spreadsheet.
2. Use column headings to define content for each column.
   • Label column A: Employee Name 
   • If you use an employee ID for payroll or other purposes, label column B: Employee ID
   • Label the next columns according to the days of the week. Most schedules begin with Mondays, but if your payroll or workweek is structured differently, begin with the appropriate day.
3. List employee names and IDs under respective column headings.
4. Fill in the template. Ensure you use “am” and “pm” if your company operates multiple shifts, or write out the hours using 24-hour time to avoid confusion.

Use the appropriate method to distribute the schedule to employees: display it visibly at your workplace, send it to employees via email or use your internal channels of communication. Make sure the schedule is convenient and accessible to all staff members so you can rely on them to report to work on time whenever they’re scheduled. 

Work schedule template

A comprehensive template for creating schedules should clearly display employees’ names, their employee ID numbers (if relevant) and the dates and times they’re expected to arrive and be ready to work. Use this template for scheduling staff for shift work at your business:

For workplaces with various projects or store locations, add a column after the Employee ID column to specify the address, room number or virtual meeting room where employees are expected to report or connect with their colleagues at the scheduled time. The schedule should provide as much detail as possible to eliminate doubt and confusion among staff members, streamlining the efficiency of your business. 

Employee Schedule Template for PDF & Excel

Check out our employee schedule template for creating an organized schedule for your employees.

*Indeed provides these examples as a courtesy to users of this site. Please note that we are not your HR or legal adviser, and none of these documents reflect current labor or employment regulations.

Methods for creating employee schedules

Other than using a template or Excel spreadsheet to draft your employee schedules, you can make use of free employee scheduling software. Using digital programs for creating schedules reduces the probability of human error and increases efficiency when updating the schedule each week or month. Some free software programs for scheduling include:

• Trello 
• DRoster
• Asana 
• FindMyShift

You can also use Google Sheets or Google Docs to manually draft schedules, but store them in the cloud to avoid data loss if your computer crashes. 

Frequently asked questions about making a work schedule 

What should I be mindful of when scheduling?

These are some concerns to be aware of when scheduling. Avoid the following:

• Double scheduling: Some employees perform different roles in different parts of an organization. It’s important that employees not be double-scheduled for a shift, requiring them to be in two places at once or working two shifts back to back, resulting in extreme fatigue.
• Scheduling too many or not enough employees: Too many employees working the same shift is an inefficient allocation of company resources. Conversely, if there’s not enough coverage during a shift, productivity will slow, and customers or project details may be overlooked due to a lack of available employee attention. 

What are some alternative work schedules?

Alternative work schedules (AWS) help companies improve employee engagement by offering flexibility. AWS can be designed around location and hours. Some examples of AWS include:

• Remote work (the ability to work from anywhere in the world)
• Hybrid models (working part of the week in the office and part of the week from home)
• The ability to work hours chosen by the employee
• Compressed work scheduling (for example, four 10-hour days per week)
• Evening shift work, freeing up employees during traditional business hours from 9am-5pm and allowing them to work evenings (for example, 6pm-12am)

What is a 5/5/4 work schedule? 

A 5/5/4 work schedule is a type of rotating scheduling system where your company has teams of employees who work across three sets of 10-hour shifts. This model enables your business to remain open 24 hours a day, 7 days per week without exhausting your employees. The 5/5/4 model operates based on the notion that a team of employees works 5 days on a 10-hour daytime shift, followed by 3 days off. Then they work 5 days on a swing shift, followed by 3 days off. Finally, they complete 4-night shifts, followed by 5 days off. The 5/5/4 cycle repeats every 25 days and is common in the medical field for nurses or other health care personnel.

What is a 3/2/2 work schedule?

The 3/2/2 work schedule is ideal for businesses that have the flexibility to let employees work from home part of the time without going fully remote. Employers with staff working in office environments are more frequently switching to this hybrid schedule, which allows employees to work for 3 days in the office and 2 days remotely, followed by 2 days off. This type of schedule is flexible and can be an appealing perk to potential candidates, making you a competitive employer.