Achieving scheduling excellence can be challenging when managing various platforms and departments. But fear not. Employee scheduling apps are here to save the day! These apps help you easily schedule employees while meeting the agility and flexibility demands of modern workers.
Compare Top Employee Scheduling Software Leaders
From retail to healthcare, hospitality to field service and beyond, the hunt for the best employee scheduling apps is on. This article is your guide to navigating through the various options. Join us in exploring the benefits and limitations of each platform and decide what’s best for your business. Let’s dive in!
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The Best Employee Scheduling Apps
According to a Shiftboard survey, 82% of workers believe effective scheduling impacts overall job satisfaction. And 81% of them want mobile access to their daily schedules.
This demand for flexibility and mobility highlights the importance of having the right scheduling tools. They make schedules more accessible and create a productive environment for your team to thrive!
However, selecting the best platform isn’t an easy task. There are various options available, and you must consider internal requirements to determine what’s best for your business.
To simplify your journey, our research analysts have analyzed the countless options and identified the top five scheduling apps. All of our choices are all-in-one scheduling platforms. They offer desktop software along with mobile apps for remote operations.
That said, here are our top picks:
Compare Top Employee Scheduling Software Leaders
Humanity
Humanity offers an employee scheduling app to access and manage shifts from anywhere, at any time. It lets you create role-based accounts. Managers can make routine changes, post open shifts and track employee requests from a mobile screen.
You can define rules and allow employees to trade shifts and pick up partial or full shifts with a single tap. The app is compatible with Apple Watches. Employees and managers can receive shifts, track time and log attendance from smartwatches.
Pricing: Offers custom pricing based on the number of employees and locations you need to schedule.
Access the platform from any device to manage operations remotely. Source
Highest Rated Modules According to Our Data
- Employee Management — 100
- Mobile Capabilities — 100
- Schedule Management — 93
- Shift Management — 83
- Reporting and Analytics— 83
Benefits
- Improve Access: Businesses can access information and employee schedules anytime, anywhere. Your workforce can access schedules on the go. Employees can set availability and preferred working hours.
- Strengthen Collaboration: It fosters team communication and collaboration while keeping employees engaged. Employees can share files, documents and images in real time using secure messaging.
- Allocate Workforce Efficiently: It supports flexible staffing rules to manage peak and lull periods. You can review workforce requirements while creating schedules. Integrate staffing information into automated scheduling processes.
- Simplify Compliance Management: Humanity manages compliance with changing labor laws using conflict warnings and custom rules. You can personalize rules to address industry-specific use cases and specific requirements.
- Improve Employee Experiences: Staff members get individual profiles. They can view schedules, receive alerts, swap shifts, track time and request time off. These self-service options empower them to manage work-life balance more effectively.
Features
- Employee Scheduling: It supports auto-scheduling to assign shifts based on variables like preferences and seniority levels. You can respond to real-time business demands. Managers can post open shifts, release slots and find replacements.
- Time Clock: This module tracks employee attendance and reduces buddy punching. You can track employee attendance and hours while exporting error-free timesheets to generate payroll. Set GPS-based clock-ins for accurate data.
- Reporting: Pre-built templates allow you to quickly report on availability, budget, shift acknowledgment and more. You can also create custom reports using drag-and-drop tools to track business-specific metrics.
- Demand Scheduler: Built-in AI helps you forecast demand based on historical demand data and your staffing rules. You can define rules to automatically build schedules and fill empty shifts based on demand forecasts.
- Integrations: Humanity integrates with popular third-party HCM platforms to streamline processes. Its two-way integration organizes all employee data.
Limitations
- The user interface isn’t intuitive.
- Scheduling in different time zones involves a learning curve.
Features Not Fully Supported According to Our Data
- Manager Logbook — Not Supported
- Read Receipts — Not Supported
- News Feed — Not Supported
- Leave Blackout Periods — Not Supported
- Custom Fields — Not Supported
Platform:
Company Size Suitability: S M L
7Shifts
7Shifts offers a shift-scheduling solution for restaurants and other retail stores. You can create schedules, publish shifts, track budgets and receive alerts for compliance issues. Built-in messaging helps you communicate with your team effectively.
The app sends reminders to employees and allows them to submit availability information and time off requests. They can chat with team members and swap shifts. Managers can automatically secure coverage for last-minute shift cancellations based on availability, skills and preferences.
Pricing: 7Shifts has a free plan that lets you manage basic scheduling for up to 30 employees in a single department. It provides team communication, time clocking and PTO management tools. Beyond that, it also offers free 14-day trial periods for its paid plans:
- Entrée: Charges $29.99 monthly per location to manage up to 30 employees. Along with the free plan features, you get role-based accounts. You can also define custom permissions for staff accounts.
- The Works: Charges $69.99 monthly per location to manage unlimited employee schedules. You get tools for budgeting, compliance management, employee engagement tracking, reporting and manager logbook management.
- Gourmet: Charges $135 monthly per location to manage unlimited employees. You can onboard and train new hires, create multiple task types, store unlimited documents and use analytics tools.
Get a centralized view of assigned schedules and find replacements with a single tap. Source
Highest Rated Modules According to Our Data
- Collaboration — 100
- Mobile Capabilities — 100
- Employee Management — 100
- Schedule Management — 100
- Shift Management — 87
Benefits
- Schedule Easily: Drag and drop tools help you add, edit or re-assign shifts from anywhere. The system sends conflict alerts with employee availability and budgetary constraints.
- Stay in Touch With Your Team: Message individuals instantly or create group chats for announcements and updates. Remind employees about upcoming tasks with automated reminders.
- Improve Connectivity: The platform offers REST API to generate resource-oriented URLs with HTTP response codes for errors. Its built-in HTTP capabilities, like authentication and verbs, support cross-origin resource sharing while securing client interaction.
- Streamline Budgeting: You can calculate employee ROI based on labor cost percentages and work hours.
- Ensure Compliance: It supports custom breaks, automated breaks and overtime alerts. You can automatically comply with state laws, fair workweek and predictable scheduling practices.
Features
- Employee Scheduling: The drag-and-drop auto-scheduler builds shifts based on workforce availability and weekly business requirements. You can plan and view labor costs by department while receiving staff overtime alerts.
- Time Clock: It tracks employee breaks, manages tips and works in offline mode. You can track employee leaves and manage staff availability and time-off requests. Employees can cover last-minute absences, fill open shifts, submit time-off requests and receive approvals.
- Task Management: Create task templates with detailed instructions to set your staff up for success. Track task completion from anywhere and receive suggestions for filling vacant shifts based on availability and preferences.
- Reports: Generate sales and performance reports and receive insights to optimize performance from the visualization dashboard. You can compare actual and projected labor requirements and automate weekly reports on overtime, breaks, wages and more.
- Manager Log Book: Store daily notes, shift details and follow-up tasks. It offers a default log book and custom categories to track shift activity and metrics.
Limitations
- Reporting doesn’t split daily profit and loss statements.
- The platform doesn’t track employee certificate renewal dates.
Features Not Fully Supported According to Our Data
- Custom Fields — Not Supported
- Custom Reports — Not Supported
- FLSA and OSHA Compliance — Not Supported
- Automatic Clock Out — Not Supported
- Single Sign-On (SSO) — Not Supported
Platform:
Company Size Suitability: S M L
TimeForge
TimeForge is a workforce management platform designed for businesses with frontline and hourly workers. Its mobile app helps you create unique profiles to store staff qualifications, certificates, skills and preferences. It alerts employees to ensure meal periods and breaks, keeping compliance issues out of your hair.
Customizable templates and rules help you create schedules and assign tasks based on availability and skills. The app supports time tracking and prevents buddy punching and other malpractices. Additionally, the manager logbook lets you quickly record and search daily notes from anywhere.
Allow managers to log in from any device and make necessary scheduling changes. Source
Benefits
- Centralize Tasks: Store scheduling and payroll data in a unified platform to simplify wage calculations. Managers can access workflows, labor insights and time and attendance data.
- Improve Communication: The in-app messenger lets you send messages and share files with team members. It records team interactions to promote accountability and helps managers communicate directly with employees.
- Standardize Workflows: You can customize workflows and establish controls for standard processes. Detailed task templates help you maintain consistency and keep everyone on the same page.
- Empower Employees: Allow employees to view schedules and submit time off requests from anywhere. They can use the app to receive instructions, chat with team members and track time.
Features
- Auto-Scheduling: Its pre-built and customizable templates streamline schedule building while generating shifts based on historical data. It optimizes schedules using factors like employee availability and skill sets.
- Employee Self-service: You can allow employees to pick up, trade and bid for open shifts. Managers can deny or approve requests and comment on requests.
- Leave Management: Manage various leave types, including vacation, sick, bereavement and paid time off (PTO). It manages employee leave data accurately while ensuring fair compensation and benefits.
- Manager Log Book: Store daily notes, shift details and follow-up tasks. Start with a default log book and add custom categories to track shift activity and metrics.
- Team Communication: You can SMS team members or publish newsletters and announcements. The platform supports read receipts to track message visibility.
Limitations
- The user interface isn’t intuitive.
Platform:
Company Size Suitability: S M L
Deputy
Deputy offers an intuitive shift scheduling app that helps you manage schedules, employees, tasks and communications. You can create and publish schedules effortlessly and manage your team from anywhere, anytime.
For last-minute cancellations, Deputy helps you find replacements quickly with a single tap. The built-in chat feature helps you share important updates and keep everyone informed. Plus, employees can clock in and out with one click, simplifying time tracking and enhancing productivity.
Pricing: Deputy offers a 31-day trial period for all its pricing plans. The plans are as follows:
- Scheduling: Charges $4.50 monthly per employee to manage scheduling, PTO and leave, POS integration, and team news feed. The plan doesn’t include a time clock app and attendance tracking tool.
- Time and Attendance: Charges $4.50 monthly per employee. You can manage attendance, timesheets, payroll integration and team news feeds. It doesn’t support scheduling.
- Premium: Charges $5 monthly (when billed annually) per employee to combine all features from the previous plans.
- Enterprise: Offers a custom quote based on your requirements. You get features like employee training, custom roles and permissions, single sign-on, demand planning, and custom reporting.
Maintain timesheets for each employee and get an overview of who’s late for work. Source
Highest Rated Modules According to Our Data
- Mobile Capabilities — 100
- Schedule Management — 93
- Time and Attendance — 92
- Shift management — 89
- Collaboration — 82
Benefits
- Boost Efficiency: Deputy automates recurring tasks like scheduling and handling unexpected changes through AI. It organizes teams, forecasts demand and computes accurate payroll to free staff from administrative duties.
- Improve Accessibility: Employees can manage shifts, availability, communication and time-offs. Managers can approve time-off and shift swap requests online without back-and-forth email chains.
- Keep Teams on Track: Share updates on the fly, assign tasks with a single tap and receive notifications when staff completes assigned tasks.
- Streamline Communication: Keep your staff informed using a centralized app to send private and team messages.
Features
- Scheduling: The smart scheduling algorithm builds optimal shifts with multiple break types. It plans shifts based on demand changes while predicting staffing requirements based on historical sales, delivery and appointment data.
- Performance Management: It generates employee performance reports, tracks goals and offers feedback. Managers can add ratings and leave comments to promote employee development and engagement while journaling individual performance tracks.
- Time Clock: Maintain accurate timesheets to track workforce data and generate payroll. Employees can log attendance clock hours from a desktop, mobile or POS kiosk. The system integrates with third-party payroll modules to sync employee information, pay rates and sales data.
- Compliance Tools: Protect your business from legal issues with customizable guardrails and simple automation. Record accurate employee hours and ensure shift breaks to comply with FLSA and OSHA regulations.
- Fair Workweek: The system helps comply with predictive scheduling guidelines. Forecast demand accurately and get alerts when scheduling changes may incur predictability pay. It offers a good faith estimate bar to track employee sentiment and engagement.
Limitations
- It doesn’t include payroll and recruiting modules.
Features Not Fully Supported According to Our Data
- Message Read Receipts — Not Supported
- Employee Profiles — Not Supported
- Leave Blackout Periods — Not Supported
- Custom Dashboards and Visualizations — Not Supported
- OSHA Compliance — Not Supported
Platform:
Company Size Suitability: S M L
Quinyx
Quinyx is an AI-powered shift management system. It helps you track time and attendance, manage budgets, optimize workforce allocation, and maintain employee engagement. You can publish shifts and stay updated on scheduling changes and swaps. It sends email alerts and push notifications to ensure everyone remains on the same page.
The shift-swapping feature helps maintain optimal coverage and empowers employees to manage their schedules. Employees can submit their availability and preferences, fostering a healthy and productive work environment. You can also define rewards and recognition to boost employee morale and promote productivity.
Pricing: Quinyx offers custom pricing based on your requirements and the number of employees and departments.
Accurately predict demand and footfall with built-in AI assistance. Source
Highest Rated Modules According to Our Data
- Employee Management — 100
- Schedule Management — 93
- Security and Compliance — 92
- Mobile Capabilities — 86
- Reporting and Analytics — 83
Benefits
- Streamline Scheduling: Use drag-and-drop tools to effectively schedule while considering costs and compliance requirements. Centralize all your scheduling workflows with timesheets, leave management and payroll tools.
- Improve Employee Engagement: Quinyx helps you drive targeted internal communication with employees and managers. You can conduct surveys and reward performances with incentives and badges.
- Make Data-Driven Decisions: The platform compares, visualizes and analyzes workforce data while filtering between locations. It generates customized reports, shareable via email or text.
- Optimize Workforces: AI helps you create long-term schedules based on your objectives, sales, demand and budget. You can use strategic modules that offer clear and concise insights to evaluate future staffing requirements.
Features
- Employee Scheduling: Define rules to auto-generate schedules based on demand forecasts and availability. Employees can trade shifts and fill open slots via mobile apps.
- Demand Forecasting: It forecasts demands using intelligent event tracking modules while optimizing employee requirements. It analyzes multiple data points to anticipate peak and lull periods and reduce guesswork.
- Labor Optimization: Quinyx optimizes labor requirements by selecting business objectives and generating accurate numbers. Businesses can boost employee satisfaction by adhering to contract hours, skills and individual preferences. Its automated schedules help you comply with labor laws and other rules.
- Task Management: Employee portals give an overview of events or tasks on a weekly, monthly or yearly basis. You can add visual training material and define task stages to ensure performance quality.
- Employee Engagement: Staff can provide feedback after shifts and directly message managers for pressing issues. With the badge and incentive reward system, you can recognize and appreciate high performers.
Limitations
- Limited scope for third-party integrations.
- It lacks customizations.
Features Not Fully Supported According to Our Data
- Built-in Messaging — Not Supported
- Leave Blackout Periods — Not Supported
- Bulk Actions — Not Supported
- Custom Reporting — Not Supported
- Break Management — Supported With Integrations
Platform:
Company Size Suitability: S M L
What Are Employee Scheduling Apps?
Employee scheduling apps are modern replacements of traditional paper-based or desktop scheduling methods. They allow businesses to manage shift scheduling remotely from a mobile screen.
These apps serve as a centralized platform for managers to create, manage and communicate schedules. Employees can easily access their assigned shifts and make necessary requests to manage work-life balance effectively.
While discussing the importance of mobility, Diana Zheng, Head of Marketing at Stallion Express, said:
In today’s fast-paced environment, mobility is essential. Employee scheduling apps benefit from real-time changes, access from anywhere, and fast communication. This is a significant advantage over desktop-oriented platforms that do not support mobile optimization since it allows for more flexible and efficient scheduling.”
Primary Benefits
Employee scheduling apps offer a range of benefits for businesses, including:
Enhance Efficiency
Regarding the common challenges of shift scheduling, Eugene Klimaszewski, Founder of Mammoth Security Inc., told SelectHub:
A major pain point is coordinating the schedules of a diverse team, ensuring adequate coverage while also considering individual availability and preferences. Balancing client needs with team members’ work-life balance is crucial but challenging.”
Shift scheduling apps are the best solution to this problem. You get intuitive tools and customizable automation to coordinate shifts and ensure coverage across every store and department.
A few advanced solutions also offer analytics tools. You can predict demand and create long-term plans, ensuring adequate workforce coverage across all seasons. This enhanced efficiency saves time and effort, contributing to smoother operations and better productivity.
Promote Flexibility
According to the Shiftboard survey, 78% of workers prefer to choose their shifts, and 76% seek the ability to trade shifts. This data highlights the importance of flexible schedules in the modern workspace. However, achieving the desired level of flexibility isn’t a simple task.
James DeLapa, Director of Digital Marketing at Wrike, said:
The biggest pain point is the time spent building schedules while managing sick days, time-off requests, leaves, and other aspects that make 100% consistency impossible. While it’s easiest to build and repeat the same schedule over and over, it’s just not realistic because we all occasionally need time off outside our regular working hours.”
Work schedule apps help you build and sustain flexible schedules. It allows managers to stay nimble during last-minute changes and find replacements based on staff availability and preferences. Additionally, employees get self-service options. They can swap shifts, bid on open shifts and have the option of first refusal for new assignments.
Streamline Communications
Employee scheduling apps serve as centralized platforms for communication, shift changes and time-off requests. Its built-in messenger and automated notifications keep your team connected and on the same page.
According to DeLapa:
Communication has a big impact on morale. The more fairly you can manage employee expectations around hours worked and time-off requests, the happier they’ll be. Automating scheduling can greatly reduce the real or perceived favoritism that poisons so many workplaces.”
Simplify Compliance
Staff scheduling apps simplify compliance with labor regulations and workplace policies.
Sudhir Khatwani, Director of The Money Mongers, said:
Scheduling software helps ensure legal compliance by automatically flagging potential issues like overtime limits or mandatory rest periods between shifts. This keeps us adhering to varying labor regulations.”
These apps are a centralized platform for you to track and manage employee schedules. You can ensure that they follow legal requirements such as overtime limits and mandatory rest periods between shifts.
The system automatically identifies potential compliance issues and helps you avoid legal repercussions. It also tracks edits and changes made by managers and employees, helping you promote team-wide transparency and accountability.
Boost Employee Engagement
Did you know that low staff engagement costs the global economy $8.8 trillion annually? Which is nearly 9% of the global GDP!
Employee scheduling apps play a pivotal role in boosting engagement. They empower employees with greater control over their schedules and facilitate transparent communication between managers and staff.
These apps enable employees to actively participate in the scheduling process, submit availability, request time off and swap shifts. This fosters a sense of ownership and autonomy. It creates a positive work environment where employees feel valued, motivated and committed to organizational success.
Compare Top Employee Scheduling Software Leaders
How To Choose The Best Employee Scheduling App
The global employee scheduling software market is expected to grow at a 14.78% CAGR to reach $820.01 million by 2027. This abundance of options can make the selection process daunting.
Making the wrong choice can result in wasted time, employee dissatisfaction and inefficient processes. To avoid such pitfalls, we present a streamlined nine-step Lean Selection methodology.
It helps you assess your situation and identify problems in your current process. Then, it lets you prioritize the best scheduling software features to fix these issues. This systematic approach ensures you pick a platform that suits your business needs. It also helps you sidestep misfit solutions that may create hurdles for your business in the future.
For further assistance, here’s a list of questions you can ask internally to identify your requirements accurately:
- How many employees will you schedule?
- What scheduling customizations are crucial for your operations?
- How can you enhance team-wide communication and collaboration?
- Which other software will need integration with the new platform?
- Which features do you need to simplify legal compliance management?
Here are a few model questions to start conversations with potential vendors and understand their offerings:
- What company sizes do you typically work with?
- What are your platform’s core strengths?
- Is your platform compatible with my existing systems?
- What security and data protection tools do you offer?
- What are your customer support and training options?
Compare Top Employee Scheduling Software Leaders
Next Steps
There’s a lot to consider when looking for the best employee scheduling app. Having a well-thought-out requirements checklist will help narrow your search while evaluating prospects.
It’s important to remember that finding the right app is not just about ticking boxes on a checklist. It’s about selecting a solution that seamlessly integrates with your business needs and empowers your team for success.
Before ending our journey here, we’d like to leave you with our free comparison report. It lets you compare some of the industry’s best employee scheduling solutions. You can define your criteria and compare platforms to determine what’s best for your business.
So, don’t wait! Choose your staff scheduling app and transform your scheduling workflow today.
Which scheduling features are important for your operations? What are the common scheduling challenges you’ve faced? Do you have any tips or experiences you’d like to share with us? We’d love to hear from you!
SME Contributors
James DeLapa is a seasoned digital marketer with over eight years of experience in SEO strategy and implementation. He’s currently the Director of Digital Marketing at Wrike. He specializes in internal link strategies, site-wide layouts and keyword optimization for clicks and conversions. His expertise extends across finance, senior care, law, commercial real estate, automotive and healthcare industries.
Diana Zheng is the Head of Marketing at Stallion Express. With a proven track record in revenue generation and relationship building, she has successfully led two personal training businesses. At Stallion Express, Diana empowers Canadian eCommerce sellers with comprehensive shipping solutions. Passionate about travel, she enjoys meeting individuals with diverse backgrounds and exploring ideas for personal development.
Matthew Ramirez is a serial entrepreneur and investor, as well as a Forbes 30 under 30 alumni. He grew and sold his first company, WriteLab, to Chegg in 2018, where he worked for three years as Director of Product Management. His new company, Rephrase, develops cutting-edge AI applications for journalists and other authors. It helps create compelling and varied content for different types of audiences.
Sudhir Khatwani is the Director of The Money Mongers, Inc. He has garnered recognition from top platforms like Yahoo Finance, Nasdaq and SHEfinds for his expert insights. He has a proven track record of leadership and innovation with more than 10 years of experience. Sudhir continues to make impactful contributions to the digital landscape, driving growth and fostering collaboration across industries.
Eugene Klimaszewski is the founder of Mammoth Security Inc., which provides security solutions to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, urban municipalities, businesses and homes. When not working, Eugene is an avid skier and a traveler. He’s also an advocate for urban communities and the right to live and work in a safe environment.
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