Employee Schedule Template

An employee schedule template lets you plan who works when, see each person’s hours and catch overtime before it happens. This free weekly schedule comes as an Excel workbook that does the math for you, and as a printable PDF. Type each shift’s start and end time, and the sheet works out the paid hours, weekly totals, staff hours per day and anyone scheduled over 40 hours.

What you get

An Excel workbook and a three-page PDF, sized for US Letter landscape:

• Schedule sheet (Excel): the blank week grid for up to 20 employees. Lavender cells are for typing; the bold white cells are formulas.
• Example sheet (Excel): the same grid filled in for a fictional bakery, so you can see how it works.
• How to use sheet (Excel): short notes on overtime, breaks and posting schedules, with links to the sources.
• PDF page 1: a printable weekly grid with room for 14 employees and a box for changes after posting.
• PDF pages 2 and 3: the filled-in example and the notes.

What a good employee schedule includes

• The week and who made it. The first day of the week, who prepared the schedule and when it was posted.
• Every shift’s start and end time. Times are clearer than “opening” or “mid”, and they let you work out hours.
• Paid hours, after breaks. If you give an unpaid meal break, take it off the shift so the totals match what you’ll pay.
• Weekly hours per person. This is where you spot overtime before the week starts, not on payday.
• Coverage per day. The number of people on shift and the staff hours for each day, so you can match them to your busy times.
• A record of changes. What changed after posting, when and who agreed.

How to make a weekly employee schedule

1. Collect availability and time off requests first, so you don’t schedule someone who can’t come in.
2. Type the first day of the week in the workbook. Use the same start day every week, because overtime is counted per workweek.
3. Set the unpaid meal break and the shift length it applies to. Use 0 if your breaks are paid.
4. Fill in each employee’s shifts. A night shift that ends after midnight counts on the day it starts.
5. Check the over-40 flags and the daily totals. Move hours around if someone would go into overtime you didn’t plan.
6. Post the schedule, or send it to everyone, as early as you can.
7. Record any change after posting in the box below the grid, and keep the schedule with your time records.

Completed example

The example is a week at a fictional bakery with seven employees. The manager works five 6:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. shifts, and the night baker works 10:00 p.m. to 6:30 a.m., which the sheet handles even though the shift ends the next day. Shifts over six hours have a 30-minute unpaid meal break taken off, so an 8.5-hour shift counts as 8 paid hours. One baker picks up an extra Saturday morning and reaches 44 hours, so the sheet flags her as over by 4.00. The bakery schedules 226 staff hours in the week, from 23 on Sunday to 38 on Wednesday. The schedule was posted two weeks ahead, and one change is recorded: a counter shift moved by an hour at the employee’s request.

Work schedules, staff schedules and shift schedules

A work schedule template, a staff schedule template and a shift schedule template all do the same job: they show who works which hours. This one is weekly, because that’s how overtime is counted under federal law and how most small teams plan. If you plan a month at a time, copy the Schedule sheet once per week in the same workbook. Each copy keeps its own formulas.

The Excel version is the one to use day to day. Save a copy for each week, so you have a record of what you planned. Print the PDF if you want a paper copy on the wall, or if you schedule by hand.

Overtime, breaks and scheduling laws

Overtime. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, nonexempt employees get at least time and a half for hours over 40 in a workweek (DOL Fact Sheet #23). A workweek is a fixed, recurring 168 hours that can start on any day and at any hour (29 CFR 778.105). You can’t average two weeks, and you pay for the hours actually worked, so a schedule under 40 doesn’t settle it. Some states add daily overtime. California, for example, requires it for work over 8 hours in a workday (Labor Code 510).

Breaks. Federal law doesn’t require breaks, but short breaks of 5 to 20 minutes are paid work time (DOL: breaks and meal periods). A meal period can be unpaid only if the employee is completely relieved of duty (29 CFR 785.19). Many states require meal or rest breaks. California, for example, requires a 30-minute meal period for work periods over five hours (Labor Code 512). The DOL keeps a list of state meal period rules.

Predictive scheduling. A few states and cities have fair workweek laws for large employers. Oregon, for example, requires covered retail, hospitality and food service employers with 500 or more employees worldwide to give schedules in writing 14 calendar days ahead, with extra pay for many later changes (Oregon BOLI). Seattle has a similar rule for large retail and food service employers (Seattle Office of Labor Standards).

Records. The DOL says to keep work and time schedules, along with time cards, for two years (DOL Fact Sheet #21).

When to get advice

Get advice if you have employees in a city or state with a scheduling law, if you want to treat someone as exempt from overtime, or if your meal breaks often get interrupted by work. Those are the places where a schedule turns into back pay.

Not sure what your state requires for breaks or overtime? hrsupport.io gives HR answers for your state, with the law behind every answer.