How to Make an Employee Schedule

Making an employee schedule is an important part of running a business.

You can make an employee schedule using scheduling software, a simple word processing program or a sheet of paper. Here's what to do:

Make a list of all your employees and the duties they can perform [source: Coleman].
Make a chart of the work days and the hours for each day.
Find out what days/times each employee will not be able to work for the period you're scheduling.
Let employees fill in the hours that work best for them [source: Coleman].
Fill in the remaining hours with the names of employees you know are available during those times.
Ask employees to review the schedule to make sure there are no conflicts.
Post the schedule for everyone to see.

Before making your business' first employee schedule, you'll need to:

Set the hours for your business. When will you be closed? When will you be open? Will you close early on some occasions?
Decide how much staff you will need and whether they will be full-time or part-time workers.
Find out all the pertinent laws relating to work hours, age requirements, leave-taking and overtime pay.
Decide on rules for lunch breaks, hour changes, notice about missing work and trading shifts. Try to be flexible so you can keep your employees happy.

Remember to consider the following when making your schedule:

Make sure you always have enough staff on hand, especially at busy times, like when you have special sales or promotions going on.
Take into account that your employees may need to take sick leave, maternity leave, vacation days, etc. If you train each employee to handle more than one responsibility, you'll be less likely to get stuck when someone can't come in.