What is employee scheduling software? Features, benefits, and how to choose

Effective employee scheduling is vital for productivity, compliance, and employee satisfaction, whether you’re overseeing a retail store, healthcare facility, or manufacturing plant. Yet, many organizations still rely on outdated methods such as spreadsheets or paper schedules, leading to inefficiencies, errors, and frustration. Modern employee scheduling software alleviates these challenges by streamlining the process of creating, managing, and communicating work schedules.
In this article, you’ll discover the ins and outs of employee scheduling solutions, what it is, why it matters, the main benefits and features to look for, and how to choose the right platform for your organization.
What is employee scheduling software?
Employee scheduling software is designed to help organizations create, manage, and optimize their workforce schedules. By automating many of the manual tasks involved in traditional scheduling — such as tracking attendance, assigning shifts, and adjusting for employee availability — it frees up managers to focus on strategic priorities rather than tedious administrative work.
Some of the core features you can expect in employee scheduling tools include:
- Automated scheduling – Use built-in rules and employee preferences to generate schedules that maximize efficiency and reduce staffing errors.
- Shift management – Easily create, edit, and distribute shifts while safeguarding coverage and minimizing scheduling conflicts.
- Time tracking – Track employee hours in real-time and maintain accurate records for payroll and compliance.
Many industries benefit from using employee scheduling solutions, particularly those with dynamic staffing requirements and fluctuating demand. Retail, healthcare, hospitality, call centers, and manufacturing are common sectors that rely on these solutions to allocate resources efficiently, control labor costs, and support a smooth operation.
The main features of employee scheduling software
By automating and streamlining the scheduling process, organizations of all sizes can ensure the right employees are in the right place at the right time. With the addition of advanced technology — such as AI-driven forecasting and analytics — employee scheduling tools will not only optimize workforce allocation but also support labor compliance, improve productivity, and create a better employee experience.
Shift planning
A core function of employee scheduling tools is a user-friendly interface where managers can create custom schedules and automatically assign shifts to best fit employees with just a few clicks. Managers should have access to a configurable dashboard that provides a comprehensive view of upcoming shifts, schedule templates, messages, and more. This feature serves as the central hub of where schedules are created, modified, and then automatically communicated to employees. As schedules are published or updated, employees should receive real-time notifications through their user interface, ensuring they stay informed of all changes and can respond in a timely manner.
AI forecasting and labor optimization
Employee scheduling is challenging, and factors like seasonal fluctuations make it even more complex. Relying on manual scheduling often results in overstaffing and inflated labor costs. By analyzing historical data, sales trends, and other relevant factors, AI-powered forecasting allows employers to accurately predict demand based on key metrics and align staffing coverage to help minimize overstaffing and control labor costs. The right tool will enable schedulers to automatically build a schedule based on each forecast and instantly fill every shift with the best fit employee.
Compliance
An element that should not be overlooked when searching for the right tool, is one that can mitigate compliance risk across labor laws, internal policies, and collective bargaining agreements. Features that automate break scheduling based on state mandates, flag scheduling conflicts, and identify employee skill gaps, are crucial for minimizing legal risks while promoting a fair and equitable workplace.
Reporting & analytics
As your business grows, so does the challenge of controlling spending against planned budgets. Tracking labor costs beyond employee wages becomes more nuanced. You must also account for wasted labor hours during overstaffed periods, overtime from understaffing, and compliance-related expenses. Therefore, your employee scheduling software should offer built-in reporting that simplifies data collection, organizes and filters that information, and provides insight into key performance indicators.
Integrations
Integrations with payroll, HR, and on-demand pay systems are essential to employee scheduling tools. They eliminate the need for manual data entry across employee time tracking, payroll, and scheduling, ensuring consistency and accuracy across multiple workforce systems.
The 7 key benefits of employee scheduling software
Addressing the challenges of ineffective employee scheduling requires tools that simplify processes and empower both managers and employees to work more efficiently. The good news is that modern employee work scheduling software addresses these issues directly. From saving time and reducing conflicts to empowering employees and maintaining compliance, the benefits of employee scheduling software are transformative for organizations of all sizes.
Benefit 1: Time savings
Employee scheduling solutions eliminate the need for manual schedule creation. By using pre-configured templates and automation tools, managers can create and adjust schedules quickly, ensuring proper shift coverage without wasting hours on repetitive tasks. Instead of manually building and populating schedules in spreadsheets per pay period, you can rely on employee work scheduling software to guarantee you have proper employee coverage for every shift.
Benefit 2: Reduced scheduling conflicts
Last-minute availability changes can disrupt operations, but employee scheduling tools simplify the process by identifying available employees based on pre-loaded data. It flags issues such as understaffing, overstaffing, or compliance violations, allowing managers to resolve conflicts efficiently. Investing further in biometric time tracking eliminates buddy punching by using fingerprints or facial recognition, ensuring employees are only paid for their work hours and are paid accurately. Modern time tracking software sends alerts for missed punches so managers can fix issues quickly, preventing unnecessary payments.
Benefit 3: Maintain compliance with labor laws
Non-compliance with labor laws can result in significant penalties. Employee scheduling software incorporates rules for Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requirements, predictive scheduling laws, and union agreements. Additionally, if your organization has labor unions, you must comply with the scheduling requirements of the collective bargaining agreement.
The cost of non-compliance can be steep. For example, violating FLSA wage and overtime laws can result in a fine of $2,374 per offense. Employee scheduling tools can help you avoid such penalties by allowing you to create rules that reflect applicable regulatory and union contract requirements. As a result, you can apply overtime fairly, keep employees within contractual working hour limits, and calculate required break times accurately.
Benefit 4: Cost savings and budget management
Staying within a fixed labor budget is tough without the right tools. Managers might unknowingly schedule too many hours or make changes that exceed the budget. For organizations that bill clients based on labor, going over budget can be a big problem. With real-time insights into labor costs and budget tracking, employee scheduling solutions let you see immediately if schedules exceed budget. Reports also let you review past pay periods to adjust future schedules and stay on track. It reduces overstaffing, prevents excessive overtime, and provides tools for tracking labor expenses to keep your organization within budget.
Benefit 5: Anytime access to employee schedules
Cloud-based employee scheduling tools provide 24/7 access to schedules for both managers and employees, eliminating the limitations of paper schedules or desktop applications. Employees, whether they’re retail staff working across multiple stores or public safety personnel in the field, can conveniently view their schedules and update their availability through an app on their iPhone or Android device. Managers also benefit from mobile scheduling tools, enabling them to create schedules, fill vacant shifts, and communicate with team members anytime from any device.
Benefit 6: Integrated time-off management
Employee scheduling software simplifies managing planned and unplanned absences by seamlessly incorporating time-off and leave requests into shift schedules. When unexpected situations arise — such as an employee being unable to return to work on time — the software automatically identifies scheduling gaps and provides solutions to ensure proper coverage. This feature helps maintain productivity and minimizes disruptions, no matter the circumstances.
Benefit 7: Improving the employee experience with flexible scheduling
Modern employee work scheduling software offers employees unprecedented flexibility and control over their work lives. Instead of relying on managers for every schedule change or update, employees can access their schedules anytime through mobile apps or online portals. Whether you have retail employees who move between stores and departments or public safety staff working out in the community, they can access their schedules and provide availability updates using an employee scheduling app on their iPhone or Android device. They can use mobile scheduling tools to create schedules, fill empty shifts, and communicate with employees from any device. This accessibility allows employees to view their shifts, request changes, trade shifts with colleagues, and quickly submit time-off requests, all within established company policies.
How to choose the best employee scheduling software
While the features we’ve discussed are essential to any employee scheduling tool, you’ll need to consider your business’s unique needs, capabilities, and resources during your buying process. This requires asking a few key questions to ensure you make the best decision for your organization.
- What issues are we looking to solve with an employee scheduling tool?
- Choosing the right employee scheduling solution depends on your organization’s unique challenges and specific needs. For example, if you require a straightforward solution for managing static schedules, an affordable, turnkey platform may be the best choice. However, if your primary challenge is aligning workforce coverage with fluctuating demand, a scheduling solution with advanced forecasting capabilities could be the key to success.
- How user-friendly do we need our employee scheduling platform to be?
- It’s crucial to consider how your employee scheduling platform may impact adoption across teams. While your organization’s challenges may require a more advanced solution with extensive capabilities, this could lead to a steeper learning curve for your staff. You’ll need to find the balance between a solution that effectively addresses your needs without compromising usability or causing frustration. If a more complex system is called for, ensure your teams are supported with a comprehensive onboarding and training process.
- What is our budget for an employee scheduling tool?
- As you evaluate your options and the costs of implementing an employee scheduling tool, remember that the investment goes beyond the initial purchase price. Be sure to account for the ongoing time and resources needed for successful implementation, training, and launch.
- How scalable do we need our employee scheduling software to be?
- Your business needs today may not look like your business needs next year or the year after. As your company scales and evolves, so will the complexity of your challenges. It’s important to select a tool that can adapt and grow with you, avoiding the need to switch software and repeat the selection process all over again. For instance, if you anticipate expanding into new regions, look for a solution with robust compliance features to navigate different local and state labor laws with ease.
- How easy is it to integrate this employee scheduling software into our existing systems?
- For employee scheduling to be successfully implemented and adopted, it must not only be user-friendly but also easily integrate with your existing tech stack. Integration enables data usage from multiple sources without requiring duplicate manual data entry or constant switching between systems, minimizing the risk of errors across payroll, scheduling, and compliance records. Your solution should fit in your team’s current workflows for maximum efficiency and ease of use.
- What kind of support and maintenance are we looking to receive from our employee scheduling tool?
- Understanding the level of service and support offered from your employee scheduling tool is essential. This will help you gauge the time and effort required to get things up and running smoothly. Be sure to inquire about what’s included across onboarding assistance, training (for employees, managers, schedulers), troubleshooting, software upgrades, bug fixes, and ongoing maintenance.
The 7 best employee scheduling software solutions
Now that you have a better understanding of what to consider when assessing your employee scheduling software options, let’s look at seven of the best employee scheduling tools on the market. For each employee scheduling solution, we’ll share an overview of its features and the pros and cons to consider.
Humanity
Humanity is a dynamic employee scheduling tool for organizations focused on frontline workers and hourly employees. It provides automated, adaptive scheduling capabilities and intuitive shift planning features designed to prevent staffing errors, reduce unexpected labor costs, and mitigate compliance risk.
Much of Humanity’s strength lies in its AI-powered demand forecasting and its ability to manage complex scheduling requirements with both custom and pre-built rules. These features enable the system to proactively identify and flag potential schedule conflicts, ensuring a smooth and efficient scheduling process. Additionally, Humanity includes a mobile app that gives employees 24/7 access to their schedules, improving shift communication and flexibility.
Pros
- Highly configurable dashboards
- AI-driven demand forecasting with option to auto-build schedule
- Auto-fill schedules with best fit employees based on skill requirements/certifications
- Supports complex scheduling rules, making it ideal for scaling organizations
- Immediate detection of scheduling conflicts
- Top-rated mobile app for employees, including built-in communication and notifications
- Full library of auto-generated reports
- Responsive customer support 24/7 (phone, email, live chat)
Cons
- Slight learning curve for more advanced features
- Some users say interface can be challenging to navigate at first
- Limited time clock functionality
- Most integrations are across only payroll and HR providers
ScheduleAnywhere
ScheduleAnywhere is a simple employee scheduling tool designed for businesses that need static schedules and basic coverage tracking. It features a spreadsheet-like interface that’s familiar to managers used to manual scheduling. While not as advanced as other solutions, it supports visibility into staffing levels and allows businesses to configure compliance-related counts for roles or hours.
Pros
- Simple and intuitive design for static scheduling
- Coverage tracking ensures shifts are properly staffed
- Multi-role monitoring helps ensure compliance for specific staffing levels
- Quick implementation and strong customer support
- Features for managing staff coverage to avoid over- or under-staffing
Cons
- Limited features for tracking overtime or breaks for compliance
- Not suited for dynamic or rotational scheduling needs
- Basic interface may not scale well for larger organizations
- Lacks advanced AI forecasting or automation capabilities
- No integration option
Aladtec
Aladtec is an automated system designed to handle the complex 24/7 shift rotations, policies, and staffing rules of the public safety sector. It allows organizations to fill coverage gaps, meet minimum staffing requirements, and stay compliant with tools like real-time alerts, digital forms, and overtime management. Aladtec helps with budgeting and visibility into spending and overtime while ensuring schedules follow union and work rules. Staff can easily access schedules, trade shifts, and bid on shifts from their mobile devices.
Pros
- Meet minimum staffing requirements
- Real time alerts and mass messaging
- Fast implementation and customer support
- Open API functionality
- Library of pre-built and custom reporting, forms, and checklists
Cons
- API integrations often require IT support
- User interface can be challenging to navigate
- Integrating with payroll systems requires additional setup
UKG TeleStaff Cloud
UKG TeleStaff Cloud is an automated scheduling tool for public safety agencies to manage complex schedules and compliance requirements. It streamlines processes, reduces errors, and provides real-time insights to spot burnout risks and improve process transparency. Users can create accurate schedules quickly and automatically fill open shifts according to their work and union rules. Additionally, TeleStaff Cloud has employee self-service features and integration capabilities with other core HR and IT systems.
Pros
- Google Cloud SaaS solution with preconfigured integrations for CAD, RMS, and payroll systems
- Fills shift gaps automatically and in real time
- Part of a full-suite HCM offering
Cons
- Inconsistent customer support quality and availability
- Lengthy implementation timelines
- One bundled offering means getting features most agencies don’t need
- Complex functionality that often requires a technical or subject matter expert to manage
WhenToWork
WhenToWork is a reliable employee scheduling tool built for businesses with dynamic and frequently changing schedules. It simplifies shift planning with drag-and-drop scheduling, employee availability tracking, and shift-swapping options. For businesses with fewer labor laws, it offers some basic compliance tools, such as monitoring hours worked, making it best suited for businesses with straightforward scheduling needs.
Pros
- Intuitive drag-and-drop scheduling
- Ability to auto-fill schedules and set schedules to repeat
- Real-time shift swapping and availability updates
- Accessible platform for employees to view schedules and request changes
- Flexible enough to handle variable shifts
- Affordable pricing, especially for smaller teams
Cons
- No ability to link tasks required for certain shifts
- Limited ability for balancing staffing needs
- Lacks advanced compliance scheduled around overtime or breaks
- No labor demand forecasting or optimization
- No integrations
Deputy
Deputy is a comprehensive employee scheduling solution designed to help businesses save time and manage compliance with labor laws. It features automated scheduling tools, time tracking, and employee communication capabilities. Deputy allows managers to track breaks and overtime to avoid labor law violations and ensure proper shift coverage. Its integration with payroll systems streamlines the payment process, helping businesses reduce administrative work and stay organized.
Pros
- Automated scheduling reduces time spent creating shifts
- Features to track overtime and manage breaks for compliance
- Robust payroll and HCM integrations
- Mobile app for scheduling and shift swapping on the go
- Scales well for small to medium-sized businesses
- Forecasting reports to helps optimize labor and reduce costs
Cons
- Basic task management for tracking tasks across shifts
- Limited scalability and customization options for larger organizations across certain industries
- Unable to handle complex rules
- Reporting tools can feel basic compared to other solutions
- Some users report a steep learning curve for advanced features
When I Work
When I Work is a scheduling solution focused on team communication and flexibility. Its user-friendly design makes it easy to create schedules, manage time-off requests, and track availability. The software supports real-time updates, ensuring that businesses can adjust to last-minute changes. It enables basic compliance tracking by allowing managers to monitor overtime and ensure employees receive proper break times, reducing risks of over-scheduling.
Pros
- Simple and quick to set up and use
- Auto-fill schedules and set schedules to repeat
- Assign tasks to shifts to track the work being done
- Communication tools, including team messaging
- Mobile-first design for real-time schedule access and updates
- Basic labor tracking to match coverage with demand
- Integrations with popular payroll and HCM systems
- Affordable pricing for small to medium businesses
Cons
- Limited compliance-specific features for tracking breaks or labor laws
- Limited ability with tags to set non-enforceable skills requirements for shifts
- Reporting functionality may feel basic for larger organizations
- No forecasting for labor optimization
Transform your employee scheduling process
By investing in modern employee scheduling software, organizations can overcome the challenges of manual scheduling, reduce labor costs, and create a better work environment for employees and managers alike.
Whether your organization is grappling with labor compliance issues, struggling to control overtime costs, or simply looking to save time, employee scheduling software offers a solution that drives efficiency and satisfaction at all levels.
TCP Software’s employee scheduling and time and attendance solutions have the flexibility and scalability to suit your business and your employees, now and as you grow.
From TimeClock Plus that automates even the most complex payroll calculations and leave management requests, to Humanity for dynamic employee scheduling that saves you time and money, we have everything you need to meet the needs of your organization, no matter how unique. Plus, with Aladtec, we offer 24/7 public safety scheduling solutions for your hometown heroes.
Ready to learn how TCP Software takes the pain out of employee scheduling and time tracking? Speak with an expert today.