17 Best Employee Scheduling Software In 2024 [TOP Selective Tools]

This detailed guide enlists the best Employee Scheduling Software with its features to help you select one, depending on the requirement:

Employee scheduling is described as the process of arranging the right employees at the right place of work at the right time. It is crucial that it should meet the needs of both businesses and employees at the same time.

A schedule that is made taking in mind labor compliance, cost, and labor satisfaction is considered to be a good schedule.

In this article, we are covering the top Employee Scheduling Software to help you select the one as per your requirement.

Let us begin!

Benefits of Using Employee Scheduling Software

1. It helps in balancing demand and supply of workflow by assigning the right number of employees with the help of historical data for better decisions on the allotment.
2. The productivity at each shift can be increased by getting knowledge of employees’ skills and performance.
3. It keeps track of flexible work schedules and ensures better retention, increased productivity, and a bottom line.
4. By following and maintaining laws, employee attendance and overtime issues can be avoided or resolved.
5. It helps in maintaining satisfaction in employees and retaining the good ones by not overburdening them.

[image source]

List of Top Employee Scheduling Software

Some noteworthy employee scheduling tools (free and paid):

1. Papaya Global
2. When I Work
3. Homebase
4. Hubstaff
5. Sling
6. Planday
7. Hot Schedules
8. Connecteam
9. ShiftNote
10. ScheduleAnywhere
11. Deputy
12. Ximble
13. Shiftboard
14. Humanity
15. WorkSchedule.Net
16. Snap Schedule
17. Calamari
18. Workforce
19. 7shifts

Comparison of the Best Employee/Work Scheduling Apps

Detailed reviews:

#1) Papaya Global

Best for Viewing and Managing the Entire Global Workforce.

Papaya Global is a unique beast when it comes to employee scheduling software. It is software that gives you complete visibility into your entire global workforce for a single, centralized dashboard. The dashboard allows you to keep a track of all of your employees from anywhere and anytime.

The digital portal also allows you to connect with the employees directly with just a few clicks. Aside from managers, employees themselves can keep track of their documents, PTOs, and payslips using the self-service portal that Papaya Global provides.

Features:

• Employee Self-Service Portal
• Stay connected with employees in real-time
• Seamless integration with existing HRIS tools
• Build insightful business reports
• Process payroll for contracted and EOR workers

Verdict: Papaya Global is an ideal HR solution to manage the behemoth task of monitoring an organization’s workforce across multiple countries worldwide. With in-built automation and a comprehensive real-time workforce monitoring dashboard, this is one software we urge multi-national corporations to try.

Price:

• Payroll Plan: $20 per employee per month
• Employer of Record Plan: $650 per employee per month.
• Free demo also available

---

#2) When I Work

Best for scheduling for shift base workplaces.

When I Work software is an open-source employee scheduling software. It helps in tracking work hours, builds schedules, and can share them instantly with the employees. It serves industries like education, food service, technology, healthcare, hospitality, and many more. It provides essential services, including employee scheduling, time clocks, timesheets, team messaging, and so on.

Features:

• Mobile access for scheduling and time clock apps is available.
• Scheduling software provides one-click scheduling, confident shift coverage, and more.
• Controls costs, integrate payroll and generates labor reports through time tracking software.
• Provides 24/7 security to the data of employees.
• Other features include shift planning, digital timesheets, and more.

Verdict: When I Work is recommended for scheduling faster, easy time tracking, and better communication. Some of its best services are labor forecasting, payroll integration, labor reports, etc.

Pricing:

• Small business: $2 per user
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing
• A free trial is available.

---

#3) Homebase

Best for free scheduling, time tracking, and team messaging.

Homebase is an employee scheduling software that enables small organizations and hourly workers to work easily. It helps in growing one’s team through hiring, onboarding, scheduling, time clock, and more features. It provides payroll features like painless payroll and pay advances.

It controls costs and helps in maintaining payroll taxes and filings. It can be integrated with many payrolls, POS, and other tools like Square, Shopify, Clover, and more.

Features:

• Helps in building and optimizing schedules to avoid no-shows and confusion.
• The free time clock feature is available to track employee hours.
• Calculates and pays correct payments to employees with payroll features.
• Enables faster hiring procedures with hiring and onboarding features.
• Leads to better team communication by making it easy to connect.
• Track performance metrics and retain employees with perks accordingly.

Verdict: Homebase is best for its features like payroll, timesheets, time clock, and more. It helps in tracking employee worked hours and calculates hours to pay correctly.

Pricing:

• Basic: $0
• Essential: $14 per month per location
• Plus: $35 per month per location
• All-in-one: $70 per month per location
• Free trial available.

---

#4) Hubstaff

Best for Attendance tracking and shift scheduling.

Hubstaff is an exceptional app for accurately tracking the work hours spent by employees on tasks and projects. Once launched, you get a bird’s eye view of all employees in your company and a detailed breakdown of their work hours based on clients, projects, and other categories. Hubstaff considerably streamlines shift scheduling, which is what earns it a spot on this list. 

The tool boasts some intuitive shift scheduling features. You can use these features to schedule the shifts of your field service crews, frontline staff, and customer service team. Besides this, you can also depend on Hubstaff to manage work breaks and time off as well. 

Features:

• Time tracking
• Manage work breaks
• Expense tracking
• Streamlined budgeting and invoicing
• GPS and location tracking

Verdict: Hubstaff comes loaded with impressive features that could help you steer clear of any scheduling conflicts. You can easily schedule shifts, manage workforce availability, and PTO requests from a single dashboard using this software. 

Price: Hubstaff offers the following subscription plans:

• Starter: $4.99/seat/month
• Grow: $7.50/seat/month
• Team: $10/seat/month
• Enterprise: $25/seat/month

All plans are billed annually. A 14-day free trial is also available.

---

#5) Sling

Best for schedule faster, communicate better, and get things done.

Sling is a free employee scheduling software. It provides efficient scheduling and communication, simplifies time tracking and payroll, controls cost, and saves time.

The services provided include labor cost, time clock, communication, task management, multiple work locations, and many more. It serves every industry that needs scheduling, including restaurants, retail, hospitals, and so on.

Further Reading => Most Popular Field Service Management Software

Features:

• Helps in organizing work schedules easily.
• With the time clock feature, employees’ work time can be tracked accurately.
• Optimizes labor costs by setting budgets and keeping an eye on labor spent.
• Generates reports on labor data for any customizable period.
• Improves clarity and performance through task management.
• Other services include news feeds, messages, PTO, and more.

Verdict: Sling is recommended for streamlining communication and easy scheduling. It is best for labor cost optimization and generating reports for any customizable period.

Pricing:

• Free
• Premium: $2 per user per month
• Business: $4 per user per month
• A free trial is available.

---

#6) Planday

Best for connecting to an ecosystem of integrations.

Planday is a smart and easy-to-use interface for efficient planning. It includes solutions related to communication, scheduling, staff management, reporting, time management, and integration. All sizes of business can be served. It provides features like smart planning metrics, payroll reporting, onboarding and support, custom permissions, auto-schedule, and many more.

Features:

• With staff management features, you can make smarter decisions.
• Provided insights about employees’ activities through scheduling features.
• Get connected with employees on the go with effective communication features.
• Track work hours and location tracking are possible with Punch Clock.
• Provides a visualized overview of the business through its reporting features.
• Integrated with the apps you use for better understanding and getting information from everywhere.

Verdict: Planday is recommended for its time management and integration solutions. It includes location-specific time tracking, and clock-in through the app.

Pricing:

• Starter: $2.49 per user per month
• Plus: $3.99 per user per month
• Pro: $6.49 per user per month
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing
• 30-days free trial is available.

---

#7) Hot Schedules (Fourth)

Best for operating and delivering brands with excellence.

Hot Schedules is now part of Fourth. It is a platform that helps in scheduling, tracking the time of employees working, evaluating performance, pick and drop shifts, and so on. It includes various products or services like workforce, inventory, services, and analytics.

The workforce covers scheduling and labor management. In inventory, it covers purchasing, invoice processing, etc. In services, it includes solution consulting, service and support, and so on.

Features:

• Simple workforce solutions are available, including scheduling, labor management, etc.
• Ensure wage and labor compliance by controlling labor costs, creating rotas, and so on.
• Ensure maximum operational efficiency by increasing employee engagement and productivity.
• Provides visibility or insight into making correct decisions.
• Operational analytics help in increasing visibility, analyzing anywhere, staying informed, and automating delivery.

Verdict: Hot Schedules are best for its services like calendar management, employee management, labor forecasting, and more. Users are amazed at its conferencing tool, automation, and so on.

Pricing: Contact for pricing

---

#8) Connecteam

Best for multiple solutions in one place.

Connecteam is a globally recognized employee management software that helps in managing your employees in one place. It can be used in industries like cleaning, construction, healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, and more. It provides services like an employee’s time clock, task management, employee training, chat, surveys, and so on.

It helps in managing time efficiently, simplifying work communication, and keeping employees engaged, professional and motivated.

Features:

• Provides various ways to interact with employees like updates & announcements, work chats, and more.
• Employees’ time on the work can be checked, tracked, and managed.
• With the employee scheduling feature, you can easily schedule shifts and receive feedback from them.
• Manage time efficiently through custom checklists and forms.
• Easily allot tasks for the team with employee task management features.
• HR and People management enables you to motivate and engage employees efficiently.

Verdict: Connecteam is recommended for its features like a time clock, task management, and employee scheduling. It helps in managing time efficiently by providing various solutions in a single place.

Pricing:

• Free
• Basic: $39 per month
• Advanced: $79 per month
• Expert: $159 per month
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing
• 14-days free trial available.

---

#9) ShiftNote

Best for building employee schedules in minutes and streamlining team communication.

ShiftNote is rebranding to ShiftForce by introducing more features. It includes employee scheduling, daily logs with a checklist, and robust tasks. It provides an easy-to-use platform for scheduling and managing employees and tasks.

It is time-efficient in its working by enabling you to quickly communicate and manage employee schedules. It is trusted by over 75,000 brands all over the world.

Features:

• Improve team interactions through group chats, messages, and so on.
• Provides time efficiency through building employee work schedules in minutes.
• Easy access of employees to their schedules increases accountability.
• Provides features like employee scheduling, task management, team communication, and so on.
• The manager logbook is available to capture shift notes, checklists, and daily sales data and ultimately keep managers in sync.

Verdict: ShiftNote is recommended for its manager’s logbook feature that enables managers to capture shift notes. You can go through daily tasks, checklists, sales, labor data, and more.

Pricing:

• Free
• Shiftforce: $8 per manager and $2 per employee per month
• Enterprise: Contact for price
• A free trial is available.

---

#10) ScheduleAnywhere

Best for easy, affordable, and proven scheduling tools.

Schedule anywhere is an affordable employee scheduling software. It provides a bundle of features along with scheduling, like creating custom reports, filling open shifts, verifying proper staffing, managing employer communication, and so on.

The industries covered are healthcare, energy, government, retail, and more. It helps in simplifying communication, saving time & money, managing schedules, and ensuring compliance.

Features:

• Provides a simple and easy procedure to build custom schedules.
• Helps in streamlining communication by converting important messages instantly.
• Efficient in time and money by scheduling faster and controlling cost.
• With scheduling tools, manage schedules and shifts conveniently.
• Ensure compliance through scheduling the right staff, automatic alerts, and more.
• Can be accessed 24/7 anytime and anywhere.

Verdict: ScheduleAnywhere is recommended for its features like self-scheduling, communication, access via mobile app, and more. It helps in reducing unnecessary time wastage and leads to the economy of time.

Pricing:

• Employee scheduling software: $25 per month
• Optional add-ons: Contact for pricing
• 30-days free trial is available.

---

#11) Deputy

Best for scheduling and timesheets without the usual chaos.

Deputy is scheduling software that simplifies scheduling and timesheets. It helps in scheduling in minutes, tracking time worked by employees, and engaging teams easily. It provides services like scheduling, time tracking, time clock app, labor compliance, mobile app, and more.

It covers industries like healthcare, retail, hospitality, security, and so on. It is meant for small to medium-sized businesses. It is used in 100-plus countries.

Features:

• Smart scheduling within no time with instant sharing.
• Tracks time taken by employees to pay accordingly.
• Engages the team by filling shifts easily, sharing work schedules, easy shift swapping, and more.
• Ensure compliance through premium pay requirements, overtime management, and so on.
• Easy attendance tracking is available to track who is at work and who is not.
• Keeps you organized with data like labor hours, costs, profits, and legal compliance through reports.

Verdict: Deputy is recommended for auto-scheduling, fair workweek compliance, demand to forecast, leave management, and more. Some users report problems in project or job management and in reporting.

Pricing:

• Starter: Free
• Premium: $4.50 per user per month
• Scheduling: $2.50 per user per month
• Time & Attendance: $2.50 per user per month
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing
• A free trial of 31 days is available.

Recommended Reading => Explore the List of Top Timesheet Apps

---

#12) Ximble (Paycor)

Best for employee experience including pulse surveys and more.

Ximble is now Paycor with more features and complete Human Capital Management Solutions. Earlier, it provided scheduling and time tracking features.

Now it includes services like shift swapping, visible employee availability, updating and notifying shifts, mobile app access, and more. The HCM Software includes talent management, workforce management, employee experience, and payroll.

Features:

• Ease shift swapping by letting employees request shift swaps with other team members.
• Avoids scheduling conflicts by showing clear employee availability.
• Automated SMS, email, and notification features are available.
• Easy access to the software whenever and wherever you are with the mobile app.
• Simplified payroll procedures with real-time calculations.
• With talent development features you can have improved focus and more frequent feedback.

Verdict: Ximble or Paycor is recommended for its HCM solutions. It includes payroll, requirements, talent development, time and attendance management, and more.

Pricing: Contact for pricing.

---

#13) Shiftboard

Best for workforce scheduling for mission-critical industries.

Shiftboard is a workforce management software for production-centric as well as service-centric organizations. It provides two software SchedulePro and ScheduleFlex for production-centric and service-centric organizations, respectively. It covers industries like manufacturing, warehousing, healthcare, public safety, and more.

It is helpful in scheduling, employee retention, compliance, labor cost management, schedule efficiency, and so on.

Features:

• Tailor-fit scheduling solution is available as per the industry requirements.
• Provides the best outcomes through continuous optimization of algorithms.
• Ensure the satisfaction of employees by providing win-win dynamics between business and employees.
• Enable you to expand workforce capacity with contingent labor management features.
• Other services include employee retention, compliance, labor cost management, fatigue management, and so on.

Verdict: Shiftboard is recommended for its tailor-fit scheduling feature that can be configured as per the industry, organization, or location. Some users report it as not very user-friendly. One needs to learn instructions on how to use it.

Pricing: Contact for pricing

---

#14) Humanity

Best for enhancing employee experience and controlling labor costs.

Humanity is a powerful, cloud-based employee scheduling software. Retail, call center, and restaurants are some of the industries it provides solutions for. There are solutions related to scheduling, operations, human resources, and C-level executives.

It enables you to create data-driven schedules and enhance employees’ experience through full visibility of their schedules. It controls Labour by reducing overhead costs.

Features:

• Retain employees through empowering them, workplace transparency, and fostering workplace connection.
• Tracks attendance of employees and curbs lateness with communication.
• Manages the workforce by providing maximum flexibility, transparency, and smart schedules.
• Ensure compliance by regular monitoring and updates, predicting labor needs, and so on.
• With mobile workforce features, both managers and employees can access the software anytime and anywhere.

Verdict: Humanity is best for its features, including flex scheduling, time clock, and mobile shift management.

Pricing:

• Starter: $3 per user per month
• Classic: $4 per user per month
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing
• A 30-days free trial is available.

---

#15) WorkSchedule.Net

Best for healthcare, retail, hospitality, and public service.

WorkSchedule.Net is an employee scheduling software designed for speed, efficiency, and usability. It works for various industries, including healthcare, hospitality, retail, and public service. Features include scheduling, automation, mobile apps, attendance, time off, calendars, and more.

It provides a free plan called WorkSchedule.Net Version 9 beta until May 22. It has a sort function that enables you to colorize the calendar, save a snapshot of view and visualize a monthly picture.

Features:

• Simple scheduling features are available with template imports, mass shift editing, and more.
• With an advanced rule-based automatic scheduling engine, you can smartly automate the scheduling process.
• The mobile app is being updated with a better interface.
• Evaluation of attendance made it easy to generate reports for payroll.
• The Time Off feature is available on the mobile app for easy request and approval procedures.
• Other features include swaps, sign-ups, calendars, notifications, and more.

Verdict: WorkSchedule.Net is best for its features such as employee scheduling, time & attendance, and mobile apps. It helps in mass shift editing, automating scheduling processes, generating reports, and more.

Pricing:

• Monthly: $2.99 per user
• 6 months: $2.85 per user per month paid twice yearly
• Yearly: $2.70 per user per month paid annually
• 2 years: $2.55 per user per month paid every two years
• 3 years: $2.40 per user per month paid every three years
• Version 9 beta is free until May 22.

---

#16) Snap Schedule

Best for employee scheduling apps engineered for efficiency.

Snap Schedule is an easy-to-use employee scheduling software. It eases scheduling, reduces scheduling time, and increases labor productivity.

It is enriched with various services categorized under three products, namely: Snap Schedule 365, Snap Schedule Premium, and Snap Schedule. Medical, academic, retail, hospitality, and more are some of the industries that it covers.

Features:

• Ensures the economy of time by automating scheduling processes.
• Effective collaboration and transparency are provided.
• Maximizes productivity by providing accurate data and the right allocation of employees.
• Calculate the correct employees’ work hours to pay them further.
• Engages employees by providing easy access to the mobile app.
• Ensures employee compliance by providing transparency and following Labour laws.

Verdict: Snap Schedule is recommended for secure operations with role-based access control and reduces labor cost and overtime. The best features are extensive reporting and pre-design schedule plans.

Pricing:

• SnapSchedule 365: $450 per scheduler per year
• Snap Schedule: Between $450 – 1,350
• Snap Schedule Premium: $995 per computer
• Backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee.
• A free trial is available.

---

#17) Calamari

Best for time tracking and attendance management.

Calamari is a cloud-based multilingual people management software. It includes two modules: Clock in/Clock out and leave management. You only need to pay for what you need with reasonable pricing plans. It includes labor law compliance with the labor legislation of more than 70 countries.

With Amazon web-service hosting, it provides a safe interface where all data is secured and encrypted.

Features:

• Tracks employee time-off requests, vacations, and days off through the absence calendar.
• Automatic PTO calculations, approval flows, and more under the leave management system.
• An innovative way of clocking in/out attendance is available called Bluetooth iBeacons.
• Various convenient ways to track location or attendance are available, like QR Code, web browsers, and so on.
• Integration with common tools is available to automatically sync HR data.

Verdict: Calamari is recommended for its security and labor-compliant interface. It is best for features like time and attendance with Bluetooth iBeacons, absence calendar, and more.

Pricing:

• Leave management: $1.7 per employee per month.
• Clock in/out: $2 per employee per month.

---

#18) Workforce

Best for scheduling driven by actual labor insights.

Workforce.com is a workforce management software that helps in employee scheduling, reducing labor costs, tracking time and attendance of employees, and more. It serves industries like healthcare, hotels, retail, hospitality, and so on. It includes products like paperless onboarding, auto-scheduling, communications, employee apps, integrations, etc.

Features:

• Provides employee scheduling solutions with features like managing labor cost, staffing levels, and more.
• Tracks time and attendance of employees accurately with kiosk apps.
• Ease payroll activity through pre-built integrations that sync timesheets to the system.
• Mobile apps are available to manage business or schedule from anywhere.
• Provides a simple paperless employee onboarding experience.
• Other services include communication, auto-scheduling, and more.

Verdict: Workforce is best for its services like live insights, labor compliance, etc. It helps in generating revenue through automatically building schedules with accurate forecasts.

Pricing:

• Lite: $99 per 20 employees per year.
• Business: $4 per month per user.
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing
• A free trial is available.

---

#19) 7shifts

Best for a complete team management toolkit for a modern restaurant.

7shifts is a restaurant scheduling software. It manages employees’ schedules, communication, attendance, and more. It includes various essential tools for effective management of tasks, like- scheduling, time clock, manager log book, engagement, hiring, tip pooling, and so on. You can set up your restaurant, create a schedule and publish it in three easy steps.

Features:

• Employee scheduling and assigning shifts can be done easily in seconds.
• Easily track time worked by employees through time clocking features.
• With a manager log boom, team communication can be done effectively.
• Proper task management features are provided to ensure consistent processes.
• POS and Payroll integrations are available to hit the labor targets.
• Engages employees through engaging dashboards and shift feedback.

Verdict: 7shifts is best for its complete management tool kit for restaurants. It includes easy scheduling, team communication, labor optimization, time clocking, task management, and team engagement.

Pricing:

• Comp: Free for single locations
• Appetizer: $17.99 per location per month.
• Entree: $39.99 per location per month.
• Works: $69.99 per location per month.
• Gourmet: Contact for pricing.
• Add-ons: Between $6.99 – 24.99
• A 14-days free trial is available.

---

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Through our research, we came to understand the importance and need of employee scheduling software and workforce management software. Every software is different from the others in terms of pricing and features they provide. They serve the same purpose of managing shifts and employees.

Some are good for time clocks, like – Connecteam, Homebase, Deputy, and more. Some are good for Payroll integrations- Ximble, Planday, 7shifts, and more. Some are best for controlling labor costs, like- Hot Schedules, Shiftboard, Snap Schedule, and more.

In this way, we can say that buying any scheduling tool can help in a great way for any organization in reducing labor costs, and increasing efficiency & productivity.

Research Process:

• Time taken to research this article: 45 Hours
• Total tools researched online: 25
• Top tools shortlisted for review: 17