Free Employee Schedule Template
A weekly employee schedule template for Excel and Google Sheets that totals hours, flags overtime, and counts daily coverage. Or build this week’s schedule online with the free generator and print it.
Free · No sign-up · Works in Excel and Google Sheets
What is in the weekly schedule template
Most free schedule templates are blank grids. This one does the arithmetic that takes the time: weekly hours per person, overtime, and how many people you have each day. It has two schedule sheets and a short how-to sheet.
| Part | What it does |
|---|---|
| Weekly by Employee | One row per employee with a start and end time for each day, weekly hours, and overtime hours calculated for you. |
| Unpaid break setting | Set the unpaid break per shift once (30 minutes by default) and every shift total updates. |
| Overtime threshold | Hours above the weekly threshold (40 by default) show in their own column so you can see overtime before it is worked. |
| Daily coverage count | A row at the bottom counts how many people are scheduled each day, so thin days stand out. |
| Weekly by Shift | A second sheet organized by shift (morning, day, evening, night) with a target headcount and a count of who is assigned. |
| Overnight shifts | Shifts that cross midnight, such as 10:00 PM to 6:30 AM, are calculated correctly. |
Weekly employee schedule example
This is the sample week that comes filled in, so you can see how the formulas behave before you replace it with your own team. Hours assume a 30-minute unpaid break per shift and overtime after 40 hours.
| Employee | Role | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | Hours | Overtime |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Employee 1 | Team lead | 9:00–6:00 | 9:00–6:00 | 9:00–6:00 | 9:00–6:00 | 9:00–6:00 | Off | Off | 42.5 | 2.5 |
| Employee 2 | Agent | 9:00–5:30 | 9:00–5:30 | 9:00–5:30 | 9:00–5:30 | Off | 10:00–6:30 | Off | 40.0 | 0.0 |
| Employee 3 | Agent | Off | 1:00–9:30 | 1:00–9:30 | 1:00–9:30 | 1:00–9:30 | 1:00–9:30 | Off | 40.0 | 0.0 |
| Employee 4 | Agent | 10:00–6:30 | 10:00–6:30 | 10:00–6:30 | 10:00–6:30 | Off | Off | 10:00–6:30 | 40.0 | 0.0 |
| Scheduled employees | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 162.5 | 2.5 | |
Times are AM for day shifts and PM for afternoon and evening shifts; Employee 4 works 10:00 PM to 6:30 AM. Sunday has a single person on, which the coverage row makes obvious.
Free online work schedule generator
Prefer not to download anything? Add employees, pick preset or custom shift times for each day, and print the week or save it as a PDF. No sign-up required.
| Employee | Mon 10/26 | Tue 10/27 | Wed 10/28 | Thu 10/29 | Fri 10/30 | Sat 10/31 | Sun 11/1 | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | |||||||||
| — | |||||||||
| — | |||||||||
| Coverage | 0 staff —h | 0 staff —h | 0 staff —h | 0 staff —h | 0 staff —h | 0 staff —h | 0 staff —h | — |
How to use the employee schedule template
- Set the three inputs at the top. Enter the date the week starts, the unpaid break each shift includes, and the weekly hours after which overtime starts. The defaults are 30 minutes and 40 hours, which match many US workplaces, but change them to suit your policy.
- Replace the sample employees. Type each person’s name and role. The sheet has room for 20 people; insert more rows inside the table if you need them and the totals will include them.
- Enter start and end times. Type times like 9:00 AM, 17:30, or 10:00 PM. Leave both cells blank for a day off. A shift that ends after midnight is counted as one continuous shift.
- Check hours and overtime. The Weekly hours column updates as you type. If someone shows overtime you did not plan, move a shift or split it between two people before you publish.
- Check daily coverage. The Scheduled employees row counts people per day. If a day falls below what you need, fill it before the week starts rather than on the day.
- Plan by shift if that suits you better. On the Weekly by Shift sheet, set a target headcount for each shift and type names under each day. The count row turns gaps into numbers.
- Share it. Save the week as its own file, print it to PDF, or upload it to Google Drive and share a view-only link with your team.
How to build a weekly schedule people can work with
A template makes a schedule faster to write. It does not make it a good schedule. These habits matter more than the layout.
Start from demand, not from last week
Look at when work actually arrives: customers, calls, tickets, or production orders by day and hour. Schedule more people into the busy hours and fewer into the quiet ones. Copying last week is fine when demand is stable, but check it against what happened, especially around holidays and month-end.
Leave room for absence
Someone will be sick, on leave, or in training. If you need four people on the floor, scheduling exactly four leaves no margin. Contact centers call this gap shrinkage and plan around it; smaller teams can simply keep one person in reserve on the busiest days.
Keep shifts consistent and fair
Predictable start times make it easier for people to arrange childcare, commutes, and second jobs, and they reduce no-shows. Rotate weekend and late shifts so the same people do not always get them, and avoid scheduling a closing shift followed by an early opening shift. Our guide to rotating shift schedules covers the common patterns.
Watch overtime before it happens
Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees earn overtime at one and a half times their regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek, and some states add daily overtime rules. The overtime column in the template shows planned overtime, so you can decide whether it is worth paying before the week starts. The time and a half calculator shows what it will cost.
Schedule breaks, not just shifts
If everyone takes lunch at noon, the busiest hour of the day is the one with nobody available. Stagger breaks across the shift. For teams where break timing matters, the shift schedule with break times template plans breaks interval by interval, and the break time calculator checks paid and unpaid time.
Publish early and handle changes in writing
Post the schedule as far ahead as you can and keep a written record of swaps and changes. A simple shift change request form avoids disputes about who agreed to what. Some cities and states have predictive scheduling laws that require advance notice and sometimes extra pay for late changes.
Common weekly schedule patterns
The template works with any of these. For multi-week rotations, generate the full cycle with the shift schedule generator and copy one week at a time into the template.
Standard 5x8
Five eight-hour shifts, Monday to Friday. Simple to plan; leaves weekends uncovered.
4/10 schedule
Four ten-hour days with three days off. Popular for extending daily coverage without overtime.
2-2-3 schedule
Twelve-hour shifts that alternate two days on, two off, three on. Covers every day of the week.
DuPont schedule
A four-week, twelve-hour rotation with a long block of days off. Used for 24/7 operations.
Pitman schedule
A two-week, twelve-hour rotation where each team works every other weekend.
9/80 schedule
Eighty hours over nine days in a two-week period, with every other Friday off.
When a spreadsheet schedule stops being enough
A spreadsheet tells you who should work. It cannot tell you who did. That gap is where the time goes: checking who arrived late, chasing missing timesheets, working out overtime after the fact, and answering “what was I scheduled for?” messages.
HiveDesk connects the two. Managers build shifts with scheduled breaks, publish the week, and copy it forward. Agents track time on the desktop app, web app, Chrome extension, or iPhone, and HiveDesk compares it with the schedule: who is present, absent, or not logged in today, how check-in and check-out times compare with each shift, and how many scheduled hours turned into worked hours. Weekly overtime is calculated from the threshold and pay multiplier you set, and agents can request shift changes or commit to open overtime slots instead of messaging you.
It costs $5 per user per month with every feature included, for teams of three or more, and you can try it free for 14 days. For contact centers, see call center scheduling software; for other teams, employee shift scheduling software.
Frequently asked questions
About the employee schedule template and generator.
An employee schedule template is a ready-made spreadsheet for planning who works when. Ours lists employees down the side and the days of the week across the top, with a start and end time for each shift. Formulas total each person’s weekly hours, flag overtime, and count how many people are scheduled each day.
Yes. The Excel template and the online schedule generator are free, with no sign-up. You can edit, print, and share the schedule as often as you like.
Yes. Upload the Excel file to Google Drive and open it with Google Sheets. The hours, overtime, and coverage formulas work the same way in Sheets and Excel.
For each day with a start and end time, it subtracts the start from the end, handles shifts that cross midnight, and deducts the unpaid break you set at the top of the sheet. It then adds the days together. Anything above your overtime threshold, 40 hours by default, appears in the Overtime hours column.
The online generator on this page is quickest for building one week and printing it or saving it as a PDF. The Excel template is better if you want to keep a file, reuse it each week, change the formulas, or share it in Google Sheets.
Post it as early as you can, ideally a week or more ahead, so employees can plan around it and flag conflicts. Some cities and states have predictive scheduling laws that require advance notice for certain employers, so check the rules where your team works.
Yes for a single week: enter overnight shifts as normal start and end times and the template handles them. For multi-week rotations such as 2-2-3, DuPont, or Pitman, use our shift schedule generator, which lays out the full cycle.
Spreadsheets work well until you have to compare the schedule with what actually happened. If you spend time checking who started late, tallying overtime, or reconciling timesheets with shifts, scheduling software that also tracks time will save those hours.