Employee scheduling for a shift team
Employee scheduling here means building the rota and publishing it. Shiftbrook does that, with open shifts, swaps, leave and clock-in. It does not fill the week for you.
A draft, then a published week
You add a shift with a place, a date, a start and an end. The person can be named, or the shift can be open. It starts as a draft. Staff do not see drafts. You publish the shifts the team should follow, and you can leave others unpublished. Open shifts, once published, show the gap. That is the schedule: a week people can open on a phone, not a message that changes underneath them.
A person can ask to swap a shift with someone else. A manager approves the swap. The published rota is the record of what was agreed. There is no automatic scheduler, no demand forecast, and no rule that fills nights from a preference form. If the week is unfair, that is visible because the same names keep landing on the same closes. The product does not score it.
Leave and the clock sit on the same week
Holiday, time off in lieu and sickness show on the grid, so a shift is not quietly published on a day that is already booked. Statutory holiday for a regular week is 5.6 weeks, capped at 28 days. Irregular hours can accrue at 12.07% of approved timesheet hours. The allowance is one you set. The product does not calculate holiday pay.
Clock-in checks the phone against the site pin. The default radius is 100 metres. It does not take a photo and it does not scan a face. The timesheet is built from the punches and the shift. A manager approves it. Approved hours download as a CSV. Sending approved hours to Xero Payroll UK is not available until that connection works end to end.
The limits you still have to apply
Saving a week can warn about the 48-hour average, 11 hours between shifts, and the weekly rest. The warning does not refuse the save. Adults can opt out of the 48-hour average in writing. Young workers cannot, and the usual limit is 8 hours a day and 40 a week. Night workers have a separate average of 8 hours in 24. None of those checks replace reading the working time guide.
The free plan covers up to 5 staff and one location on the first organisation. Past that, the paid plan is £3 per active person per month, with a £15 minimum. A 14-day trial of the paid plan does not ask for a card. When the trial ends, the organisation returns to the free plan. One location is included on the free plan. Further locations are on the paid plan. Scheduling, in this product, stops at the published hours. Pay, recruitment and a forecast of how busy Tuesday will be are not part of it.
Questions
Will it build the rota automatically?
No. You place the shifts, or you copy a week you already made. There is no auto-scheduling.
Can staff see a draft?
No. Staff see published shifts and published open shifts. Drafts stay on the manager’s grid.