Are you looking for the best scheduler software? Maryana Nusinova collected information about the best free scheduling software and the best planner app for students.
What is the best Free scheduling software? We’ve previously covered what are the top 5 free google tools for small business owners worth your time. Since it’s common to have odd hours at a small business, especially if you’re the one running it, you’ll need to have a flexible schedule. So here are 5 apps that will help you stay on track with both your work goals and personal goals.
This is the ultimate list of the best free employee scheduling software in 2021. It contains the 10 best free employee scheduling software along with some bonus no-cost employee scheduling apps. I also cover a couple of FAQs related to free employee scheduling software solutions. Overall, this article will help small business owners and HR managers save money by quickly comparing the top free employee scheduling software available and selecting one that suits their needs.
As a business owner, you are constantly looking for ways to save money and keep overhead under control. One way to do this is to figure out how to handle your employee scheduling needs without paying an outside company to do it for you. Doing so will leave more money in your pocket. Also, managing your employees well means a happier work culture and more productive teams (translation = more cash in your pocket. Cha-ching!).
There are some powerful free employee scheduling software that can help you in workforce management tasks like shift scheduling, staffing, managing labor costs, shift swapping, schedule changes, and schedule distribution. In this article, I will talk about 10 such free employee scheduling apps that will help you manage your teams better and remove work overwhelm.
1) Word
Microsoft Word (or some other word processing software) is basically just glorified pen and paper. Word processing software was created with the written word in mind, not scheduling.
Sure, it can get the job done, but you’ll have to put some major effort into getting it right and making it collaborative.
Even if you do decide to use Word as your schedule maker, it’s still not super conducive to rapid mass distribution. Like pen and paper, a Word document requires another step to get it into your employee’s hands.
That step could be printing it and posting it or handing it out. It could be emailing it to all your employees (as we’ll discuss below). Regardless of your choice, it’s still another step that makes your life just that much more difficult.
And while a Word document is easier to change than pen and paper, it’s still not the most user-friendly tool out there. Formatting a Word document to reflect your business’s work schedule can be a daunting task that may require hours upon hours just to set up.
Plus, if you update a Word document, you’ll have to resend the whole thing and then make sure everyone sees the new version.
In addition, you won’t see a Word document let you know when you’ve scheduled someone to work during a time when they’re not available. Yes, a Word document is a step up from pen and paper, but it’s only a very small step.
And while it is more-or-less free, there are certainly better free alternatives out there. Keep reading to find more.
2) Excel
Excel is a more common replacement for pen and paper. Excel doesn’t have the formatting restrictions that plague Word when the latter is used to make a schedule. Excel allows you to easily resize rows, columns, and even individual cells.
So while it’s much more flexible as an employee scheduling tool, it still suffers from the distribution problems that keep the previous entries from being your go-to solution. You’ll either have to print and distribute your Excel schedule or email it to all your employees.
Excel was designed as a database and accounting tool. It is in these tasks that it excels (no pun intended). Like Word, it can be made to work as a scheduling tool, but it’s still most at home crunching numbers.
3) Email
Let’s switch gears for a moment and consider distribution — how you get your schedule into your employees’ hands. Yes, posting your schedule or handing it out personally does work, but it’s much easier to send your schedule via email.
You simply create a mailing list or group that includes all your employees, attach your Word or Excel schedule, and hit “Send.” It requires very little effort to use. It can also reach a large number of people quickly.
Even though it’s easy, it may not be the best bet for getting your schedules out there. What with texting, instant messaging, and chatting becoming the norm, some people don’t check their email very often — if at all.
4) Dropbox
Dropbox is another option that can facilitate your schedule distribution. With Dropbox, you first create your schedule then upload it to Dropbox, where you can specify who is allowed to access the file.
Dropbox can then be instructed to send notifications to all parties involved via email, text, and various other means to let your employees know that a new schedule has been posted.
In some ways, it’s better than email because it can reach those who don’t check their email very often. Like email, though, it’s another step in the difficult process of scheduling.
Is there a way to combine the creation process and the distribution process into something a bit more streamlined? Read on to find out.
5) Google Docs
Google Docs takes the creation of your employee schedule and puts it firmly in the cloud. You create your document online. It’s saved online. And you can specify who has access to the document.
Then, like Dropbox, you can send notifications via various methods to all your employees.
Once that’s done, your document is available anytime, anywhere. Your employees just need to access Google’s document editor (which is pretty much everywhere) to view or print the schedule.
With Google Docs, the distribution has been streamlined considerably, but the creation still leaves a lot to be desired. Like Word, Google Docs was meant for text-based projects like letters and reports.
As such, its most powerful features are focused along those lines and not toward making the scheduling process easier for you.
6) Google Sheets
Google Sheets — Google’s cloud spreadsheet program — is much like Excel in that it makes the formatting of the schedule that much easier by allowing you to resize rows, columns, and cells.
You can also add color-coded blocks to delineate employees and include tasks and responsibilities in a more logical and visually appealing way.
Google Sheets, like Docs, can be distributed quickly and easily by sharing the document with specific users. Those users can then access the document whenever and wherever they choose.
The ease of distribution is certainly a plus and the fact that Sheets is much easier to manipulate for scheduling purposes than Docs makes it a better choice amongst free scheduling tools. But is there yet a better option?
7) Microsoft Outlook
Calendar software like Microsoft Outlook can be an excellent replacement for pen and paper, word processors, spreadsheets, and their cloud-based counterparts. And chances are you have a free scaled-down version of Microsoft Outlook on your computer already.
So what makes Microsoft Outlook a viable (though not ideal) choice for free employee scheduling software?
Microsoft Outlook is much more amenable to scheduling because it was created with that in mind. Times, days, weeks, months, and even years are already present and can be manipulated with ease.
In addition, creating shifts, which on most calendars would be tasks or appointments, is as easy as clicking a time slot and labeling it accordingly.
So while Microsoft Outlook is a large step in the right direction, it still shouldn’t be classified as the best free (or paid) employee scheduling software option.
For one thing, Microsoft Outlook was made for the use of a single individual. Because of that, it can be a bit difficult when you have to schedule more employees than you can count on one hand.
For another thing, Microsoft Outlook wasn’t created with overlapping shifts, rotating shifts, night shifts, and other complicated scheduling practices in mind. Remember, it was intended for one person who could only be in one place at a time.
Microsoft Outlook also faces the same distribution challenges that make native word processors and spreadsheet programs like Word and Excel obsolete (e.g., they’re not cloud-based).
That’s not to say that you can’t make them work. It’s just that there are better solutions out there for free employee scheduling software.
8) Google Calendar
Google Calendar combines the ease of online creation and distribution with the power of a calendar specifically designed for scheduling. Google Calendar replaces Docs, Sheets, Word, Excel, and, yes, pen and paper.
Though Google Calendar was originally designed to be a personal calendar, with some work it can be altered to schedule multiple employees.
From either the day view or the week view, you can click on a time to add an event. You can then label that event (with the worker’s name or duties) and specify the duration (say 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.).
You can also color code the event for easier viewing, attach email addresses to the event for simplified communication, and set up automated notifications to keep your employees informed.
Though Google Calendar may look like the answer to your scheduling prayers, it can be a bit tedious if you have more than 4 or 5 employees. In addition, it can be difficult to decipher if you have overlapping shifts and other complicated scheduling.
Above all, the tools mentioned to this point weren’t designed with restaurant scheduling in mind. Only one tool was.
9) A Group Chat App
One of the biggest challenges you face as a manager is distributing the schedule to all your team members. You have to consider questions like:
- What’s the best way to get the schedule into every employee’s hand?
- Would giving them a physical copy be the most efficient and timely method?
- Do they have email and do they check it regularly?
- Are websites like Dropbox the easiest way to make the schedule available?
Chances are that when you examine your answers to the above questions, you’ll see that those solutions are not the most productive choices. That’s because your employees don’t use apps like Dropbox regularly other than for work.
Instead, they’re using group chat apps to stay in touch with their friends.
Why not distribute your schedule through an app they’re already familiar with? That’s where these group chat apps start to shine.
The unique thing about group chat apps is that they allow you to exchange messages (texts) with one or all of your employees without paying SMS fees. You can use the app to get your schedule into everyone’s hands instantaneously.
Conclusion
Scheduling software that helps you to plan better, has many features that help you plan your time, work effectively and can be accessed anywhere, anytime.