Writing out a work schedule with pen and paper might seem simple, but it doesn’t always work in the modern work environment. Organizations that invest in digital scheduling and time-tracking software can decrease scheduling mistakes and off-the-clock work.
Plus, work schedules should be easy to edit, immediately shareable, and flexible. Learning how to make a work schedule in Excel can help fulfill these needs if work scheduling software is out of reach.
Whether you’re planning your own workday or organizing a team of employees, creating a work schedule in Excel is an easy and effective way to keep your work schedules on track.
Excel allows you to make easy-to-use work schedules that you can quickly share with your team. They’re clean, concise, and can quickly be edited to make sure everyone has correct, updated information about their working hours.
Work scheduling might seem simple on the face of it, but not every company follows a 9 to 5 work schedule with weekends off. For many businesses, work schedules are complicated.
Waiters shouldn’t — and often can’t — cover for missing employees in a restaurant’s kitchen the same way executive assistants shouldn’t cover for missing sales reps in a business. Knowing how and who to schedule is crucial to the success of a business.
While the most efficient option is to automate your work schedules through an employee scheduling app like ZoomShift, Excel is a good alternative for keeping track of your employees’ working hours.
It’s even possible to download our free work schedule template to get started straight away.
You don’t need high-level Excel skills to whip up a work schedule in Excel. In fact, any Excel user — from beginner to advanced — can quickly and easily create a usable, flexible work schedule .
Before creating a work schedule in Excel:
To create a work schedule in Excel, follow these 10 steps:
1. Open Excel and start a new blank spreadsheet.
2. Highlight cells A1 to E2 and select “Merge and Center.” Enter your preferred schedule name in the merged cells.
3. Select cells F1 to H2. From the “Borders” dropdown, choose all borders.
4. In these cells, enter the below key headers. After entering the headers, adjust the cells to fit the text.
5. In cell A3, enter “time.”
6. In cell A4, enter the starting work time — for example, 7:00 a.m.
7. From cell A5 down, enter time in 30-minute increments.
8. From cells B3:H3, enter the days of the week. Begin with whichever day works best for your work schedule.
9. Select all cells and center-align text. Then adjust cells to fit the text.
10. Optional: Color code times and days of the week. Then save your schedule as a template.
After creating the base work schedule, you can fill in the days and times with project tasks, assignments, meetings, and other necessary information.
Before diving into the ins and outs of Excel, you need to have a clear picture of what you want to achieve with your schedule. Work schedules can come in many different shapes and sizes, and each type can be used to achieve different goals.
Do you need a work schedule for your own personal work day, or are you scheduling a team of employees’ shifts across a week or two? Whatever schedule you create, focus on ease of use. You should be able to glance at a work schedule and almost immediately know who needs to be where at what time, quickly track hours for payroll, and view current and upcoming project steps.
Whether you’re a large business or an individual, scheduling is vitally important. You want to get the most out of your resources by maximizing your use of time — both the amount and the quality of time spent working. In addition to helping you plan out working days, Excel scheduling makes a big difference by helping:
Scheduling might seem like a small detail, but learning how to make a work schedule in Excel — or any other work management system — can be incredibly important for business success. Scheduling your staff at the right time helps your business run smoothly, increases morale, and decreases the possibility of overworking or underpaying staff, so it pays to get your scheduling right.
No matter what type of work schedule you need to create, using scheduling software like ZoomShift can help take the stress out of scheduling and make sure you get it right week after week. Take advantage of your 14-day free trial today and see how we can help transform your scheduling.
JD SpinozaJD enjoys teaching people how to use ZoomShift to save time spent on scheduling. He’s curious, likes learning new things everyday and playing the guitar (although it’s a work in progress).
