Setting up the week
Type the names of everyone on the rota, one per line, in the order you want them on the sheet: by team, by role or alphabetically, whatever helps people find their own row quickly. Pick the day your week starts on and, if you like, type the week into the Week of field, so a printed sheet on the wall says which week it belongs to. Then download the spreadsheet to plan on a computer or the PDF to plan with a pen.
The printed page has one row per employee, seven day columns with a small line for the date under each day name, a Hours column and a Notes column. Along the bottom runs a total row with a box per day and one for the week. The spreadsheet has the same shape, with two narrow cells per day for the start and end time, and it does the adding for you.
Writing the shifts
On paper, write what your team already understands. Times such as "9 to 5" or "14:00 to 22:00" are the clearest. Where the shifts are always the same, a shift name or a short code is quicker, and the legend under the title gives you three: OFF for a day off, AM for the morning shift and PM for the afternoon or evening. Use the Notes column for the things a cell cannot hold, such as "training until noon" or "covers for Priya". Keep the codes consistent from week to week, so nobody has to ask what a letter means.
How the hours add up in the spreadsheet
Type the start and end time of each shift into the two cells of that day, in the 24-hour form or with am and pm, the way your spreadsheet program reads times. The Hours cell at the end of the row adds up the seven days. A shift that runs past midnight counts correctly, because the formula measures the time until the end of the day and on into the next. A day with an empty start or end counts as zero hours, so a day off needs nothing at all.
The total row adds the hours of everyone per day and for the whole week. Those two numbers tell you quickly whether a day is thinly staffed and whether the week fits the hours you can pay. Breaks are not taken off automatically; if your shifts include an unpaid break, either enter the paid times or note the break length in the Notes column.
Checking the plan before you post it
Read the sheet column by column, not row by row. For each day, count how many people are on and whether the opening and closing shifts are covered. Then read each row and look for the problems a rota tends to hide: a closing shift followed by an opening shift the next morning, six or seven working days in a row, and the same person with every weekend. Compare the hours per person with their contract, and check the total against last week. Rules about rest periods, breaks and overtime differ from place to place, so check the rules where you live and what you have agreed with your staff.
Posting the schedule and handling changes
Post the schedule in the same place at the same time every week, on paper in the break room or as a photo in the team chat, and keep the week-of field filled in so an old sheet is never mistaken for the current one. When two people swap a shift, change the sheet, not only the chat, and initial the change on the paper copy. Keep the finished sheets for a few months: they are the record when a question about hours comes up later, and the quickest way to plan the same week next year.
Tools and templates for scheduling
The hours calculator works out the hours and minutes between a start and an end time, with a break taken off, which is handy when you plan on paper and want to fill in the Hours column. The timesheet calculator adds up a whole week of shifts for one person with breaks, night shifts, rounding and overtime, and saves the sheet as a PDF or CSV. The overtime pay calculator shows what the hours above the regular week cost at the overtime rate, and the business days calculator counts the working days in a period when you plan vacation cover.
Employees who hand in their own hours can use the timesheet template, and the vacation request form collects the time-off requests you need before you plan the week.
Frequently asked questions
Is the work schedule template free?
Yes. Download the spreadsheet or the PDF every week, for one team or several. There is no signup and no watermark; one small line at the bottom of the page names our website.
How does the spreadsheet count the hours?
Every day has a Start and an End cell. Type times like 9:00 and 17:30, and the Hours column adds up the difference for all seven days. A shift that ends after midnight, say 22:00 to 6:00, counts as eight hours. A day with one or both cells empty counts as zero, so a day off needs nothing typed. The total row adds up the hours per day and for the whole week.
Can I write shift names instead of times in the spreadsheet?
Put them in the Notes column, or type the times a shift stands for. A word in a Start or End cell is skipped by the hours formula, so AM or OFF in those cells does not break the sheet, but it also adds no hours. On the printed PDF you write anything you like into the day cells: times, a shift name or a code from the legend.
Why does the week start on Monday?
Many rotas run Monday to Sunday, so that is the default. Pick Sunday if your pay week starts there. The order of the day columns changes in both files, and the small date line under each day name on the PDF takes the real dates of that week.
How many employees fit?
Up to 20 names, one per line. The PDF gives each a row that is tall enough to write a shift by hand; with many names the rows get shorter. Leave the field empty to print 12 blank rows and write the names yourself. The spreadsheet has at least 12 rows and grows with your list.
Why are some characters missing from a name in the PDF?
The PDF uses a standard font that covers English and most Western European letters, but no emoji and no other scripts such as Greek, Cyrillic or Chinese. Those characters are left out, a few rare accented letters lose the accent, and a note under the field tells you when that happens. The spreadsheet keeps every name exactly as typed.