How to make a work schedule for employees: 8 steps

Work schedules are more than a printout tacked to the break room wall. They’re a way for managers, team leaders, HR professionals, and owners to ensure they have the right people on the clock at the right time and at the right cost. At the same time, they give employees clear visibility into when they’re expected to work and for how long so they can plan their lives. 

Getting an employee schedule together is no small task. There are shift preferences to manage, availabilities to weigh, costs to control, and last-minute substitutes to find—to name a few considerations. If you’re wondering if there’s an easier way to manage it all, you’re far from alone.

The good news: There’s an entire market for software designed to help managers make and distribute employee schedules on a weekly or monthly basis—or any other cadence your organization uses.

Let’s explore how to make a work schedule for employees, the types of schedules you can make, and how you can speed up and simplify the process with dedicated tools.

What is a work schedule?

A work schedule is a plan that tells employees when they’re expected to work and for how long. It can be old fashioned—a chalk board or a printout—or it can live online or in an app. Whatever form it takes, employees look to it to plan their work week or month, and managers use it to make sure they have the right resources on hand at the right time, doing whatever needs to be done. 

Work schedules often have other information, too, like if an employee will be stationed at a specific post or doing a specific task during their shift. They can also include information about things like breaks and lunch times, overtime, and blocks for when someone is unavailable for a period due to, say, vacation. 

What makes a great work schedule?

Generally speaking, the best work schedules are easy to make, consistent in format, easy to share and access, simple to understand, and built and managed with user-friendly technology. Here are a few hallmarks of successful schedules worth considering as you go about making your own:

Real-time updates

Schedules can change on the fly. Someone gets sick and needs coverage, someone quits, or someone new joins the team. These and other circumstances can cause changes in scheduling that team members need to know about sooner rather than later. You’ll want to choose a scheduling tool that gives you a means to manage this reality in the form of real-time updates. 

Mobile access

More than 95% of users globally accessed the internet via mobile in 2023, according to Statista. That’s no surprise given how convenient mobile is, and how much time we spend on our phones. With that in mind, a schedule that’s accessible via mobile is convenient for employees, giving them a way to check their work times on-the-go and from any device. But increasingly, having mobile access to your schedule is necessary rather than a nice-to-have, considering the share of internet users on mobile devices. 

Alerts and reminders

Today’s best work schedules are built using features that make it easy to push notifications and reminders to staff. For example, some scheduling apps can send mass messages to staff when a new schedule drops or when changes are made. These alerts give managers and team leads peace of mind that changes they make to the schedule will be seen by everyone in a timely manner.

How to make a work schedule for employees: 8 tips

Making a schedule is more than just filling shifts with workers. There’s much to consider, including who should work when, preferences and availability, and how you’ll actually make and publish it. Here are some tips to help you get your work schedule up and running.

Determine your targets for labor

Your work schedule is directly tied to your bottom line, with labor accounting for as much 50-60% of total company spending on average. And according to a Deloitte analysis, the average employer over-spends on labor by one-half to two percent of hourly payroll every year. To avoid that, dedicate time upfront to right-sizing your staff for every shift, aiming to schedule the right number of workers to handle necessary responsibilities, without constricting important duties like sales or services. To do that:

• Establish the total labor cost per hour per employee, which is their hourly wage plus the hourly cost of any benefits they’ll receive plus taxes.
• Make a labor budget that determines how much you can afford to spend on staff as a share of your expected income. That can help you determine how many hours you can allocate across your business’s operating hours.
• Determine the minimum staff you need at any given time or day.
• Flag the times when you expect to need more than the minimum number of workers, and build that into your cost calculations and staffing requirements. Some industries—like retail or dining—may require significantly more workers during peak hours. Restaurants, for example, are typically busier on nights and weekends. Shops tend to fill up on weekends and during sales.

Build a smooth communication system

Communicating your schedule in a consistent, reliable way is arguably just as important as making the schedule itself. It’s good to have a way to notify workers when a new schedule is published or when changes are made.. It’s also helpful if employees have a reliable way to access the schedule from a mobile app or website.

Consider work preferences and time off

Employees will have preferences around when they want to work. They will also have time-off requests, or days and times when they are simply unavailable due to other commitments. You don’t want to be chasing down employees for their availability every week, so make sure you’re able to gather these inputs in a timely, consistent, and efficient way. Ideally, choose a scheduling system with built-in functionality for employees to input their availability and make time off requests, so that you can see them as you make staffing decisions.

Schedule based on the strengths of your employees

Different employees have different strengths. Some may be outstanding at processing complex orders or information, and others may have social skills that charm your customers. Some work well under pressure, others may thrive in less stressful settings. These and other characteristics will become apparent the longer you work with them, and you can align employee attributes with your staffing requirements at different points in the day or week. 

For example, say you’re making a schedule for a hotel front desk. Busy check-in hours may require a full staff that’s efficient and able to work well under pressure, while evening shifts may warrant a smaller crew that’s well-equipped to provide guests with dining and nightlife advice.

Plan ahead

In many industries, staffing needs can vary based on a number of factors that can influence demand and foot traffic. A cafe with an outdoor patio could see increased business during sunny summer weekends. A pub near a sports venue might see a surge on game nights. And a sports bar with lots of TVs might be packed for football on Mondays. Point being: You’ll want to make sure you account for any variable that could impact the amount of staff you’ll need on a given day when you make your schedule. 

In the same vein, you’ll want to make sure employees provide adequate notice for time-off requests and availability blackouts so you can avoid being short-staffed at the last minute. 

Understand availabilities

Whether you’re scheduling full-time or part-time workers, they have other commitments to tend to, like family, school, or even another job. In some cases, workers’ availability may be the same from week to week, but it may change for others. Establish a clear, repeatable process to collect availability before you sit down to make your schedule. Best case scenario: Your scheduling software has functionality for workers to input their availability, so you always have visibility into when everyone is available as you assign shifts. 

Look for automation and personalization opportunities

Leverage your scheduling tools’ automation capabilities to streamline and personalize your workflows. That could entail creating automated approval flows for time-off requests. Or, if capabilities allow, you could  assign different roles and access levels based on employee role and level, and empower managers to make or approve scheduling changes. You could also provide managers and senior leaders access to dashboards with data around total labor costs and forecasts so they can appropriately dial up or down labor hours. 

Make sure the schedule is easily accessible

This is a big one: Your schedule is only as effective as it is accessible. Make sure you choose a scheduling tool that gives workers an easy way to access the schedule as soon as it’s published. They should be able to access it in multiple ways—via any device, for example. An app is a nice touch. And even if you post the schedule digitally, it can still be a good idea to have a physical schedule accessible somewhere in your workspace—there’s no such thing as too much access to the schedule.

Types of employee work schedules

There are a few different categories of work schedules. Which one you use depends on the type of business you’re scheduling for, your employees’ expectations, and how you prefer to manage staffing.

Fixed schedules

Fixed schedules are more or less “set” and don’t change much from week to week or month to month. Employees typically work the same shifts on the same days at the same times every week. The upside is that managers and staff get consistent, predictable schedules, which simplifies resource planning. You only have to make adjustments when something changes—someone leaves, you hire new staff, you need coverage when someone’s out, and so forth.

Weekly schedules

Weekly schedules that vary from week to week are common among hourly and shift workers. This requires a process to update the schedule and make sure that employees are notified of their coming shifts with adequate notice. Note that some states and local jurisdictions have passed laws that require giving employees a minimum amount of advance notice before scheduled shifts, so if your business has varying weekly schedules, it’s important to know what laws apply and post your work schedules early enough to comply with any relevant regulations. 

Rotating schedules

Rotating schedules, where employees work different shifts at different times of the day or week to prevent gaps in shift coverage, can work well if your business has a range of shifts to cover and some of them are less desirable than others (such as overnight or early-morning shifts). Rotating who works which shifts is a way to spread the burden equally among staff. Think nurses, front-desk staff at a big hotel, or maintenance workers who need to be on hand overnight in case anything goes wrong.

On-call schedules

On-call schedules allow you to schedule some staff on call to work certain shifts only if they’re needed. Under this arrangement, employers can use real-time demand as a gauge for how many workers they’ll need on a given day or during a given shift.

Of course, every business is different and requires its own consideration around which model is best for employee scheduling. Some models are more common in certain industries, and some businesses even mix different types of schedules.

The importance of employee work schedules

Workplace schedules are an essential part of operations for most businesses. Below are just a few of the reasons they’re so key, including maximizing workplace productivity, minimizing burnout, and more.

Maximizes worker productivity

Scheduling is a balancing act. Staff too few workers and you could lose out on business or drive away service- or speed-sensitive customers. Staff too many and you could waste money on idle employees. To maximize productivity, you need to staff enough workers to adequately address the needs of customers at any given time, but avoid overstaffing.

Reduces burnouts

Just as over-staffing can put pressure on margins, under-staffing has negative consequences too—including on employee morale and well-being. Stressed-out, overworked employees who can’t meet the needs or expectations of customers during their shift may be inclined to quit. Left unaddressed, that could trigger a costly cycle of attrition, hiring, training, and burnout. Adequate scheduling ensures your team has enough support on hand to get the job done without becoming over-taxed.

Smooth transitions, breaks 

A quality scheduling process can also ensure consistently smooth operations and seamless handoffs between shifts. For example, you may opt to build in some overlap between shifts if the changeover is set to occur during busy times, so there’s  minimal interruption to service and to hedge against the occasional late arrival. Breaks, too—if they’re not scheduled, when to take them could become a source of confusion or conflict among staff (or even a compliance issue, if your jurisdiction requires employees to take breaks). Schedules can and should account for breaks so employees know when to take them.

Work schedule example and template

If you are wondering how to make a schedule for employees, here’s an example schedule template you can use. In addition to the obvious fields like the employee’s name and ID and the hours they’re expected to work on which days, you can also include more-detailed information like the task, station, section, or role they’ll be assigned to. The important thing is that it’s clear and easy to read. And, as mentioned earlier, you’ll want to make sure it is easily accessible every time it’s published.

That said, while a template can be helpful to get started, it may not be your best option. You’ll still need to update the schedule manually, which can be time-consuming and prone to errors. A better solution would be to use technology that speeds up the scheduling process and minimizes the chance of mistakes.

Optimize your employee work schedules with Rippling

With Rippling, you can build compliant schedules that meet your business’ needs and avoid common scheduling pitfalls.

Rippling’s scheduling tool is built on a single source of truth for employee data—meaning you have access to information like pay rates, attendance, and certifications as you schedule shifts—so you can build schedules that meet your business needs and comply with labor laws.

With Rippling, you can:

• Copy and paste shifts
• Drag and drop to build schedules
• Easily plug in breaks
• Add new shifts with one click
• Easily assign schedule patterns

Plus, employees get real-time alerts when a schedule is published or changed. Get the tools you need to create flexible schedules and a happy workforce.

Frequently asked questions

What should I include in a work schedule?

Work schedules should be as detailed as possible and make it clear for employees when they’re expected to work, where they should report, and what they’ll be doing during each shift. At a minimum, you should include:

• The employee’s name and any key identifiers, like their employee number
• Shift start and end times
• Lunch times and break info
• The task or type of work required during the shift (e.g., dining room or bar)
• Overtime requirements, if applicable
• Locations to report to

How do I format a work schedule?

Work schedules are often formatted in a spreadsheet-style view, with days of the week and dates up top, and employee names down the left-hand side. Some schedules are made in calendar-style format, with names and shifts written into days of the month. Work schedules come in all shapes and sizes, though, and you can experiment with a variety of formats until you find one that suits you and your team. However you go about it, be sure to include key shift info — namely start and end times, breaks, and lunch times.

What is a 5/2/5/3 work schedule?

The 5/2/5/3 work schedule is a staffing structure that has employees work for five days, then take two days off, followed by five days on, and then three days off. It’s designed to provide a consistent scheduling format that cycles every two weeks, with a three-day break every other weekend to ensure workers get ample time to rest. 

How can Rippling help with employee scheduling?

Rippling can streamline employee scheduling by providing a tool to manage it. Employes can report their availability and request time off, so you can see and approve as you draw up the schedule. Then it can alert your staff when the schedule is published, so you’ll be sure they’re notified. It can also help you do things like maintain compliance, schedule breaks, and monitor attendance.

This blog is based on information available to Rippling as of October 7, 2024.

Disclaimer: Rippling and its affiliates do not provide tax, accounting, or legal advice. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide or be relied on for tax, accounting, or legal advice. You should consult your own tax, accounting, and legal advisors before engaging in any related activities or transactions.