A shift schedule tells every employee in advance which days and hours they work. To build one, you need to: work out how many people the location needs each hour, pick a rotation pattern (5/2, 2-on-2-off, 24 hours on and 72 off, and so on), assign people around their time off and rest between shifts, check their hours against the norm, and publish the schedule early. Below we cover the common types of employee schedules, who each one suits, and how to keep overtime from slipping through the timesheet.

Types of employee schedules

Restaurants, coffee shops, stores and hotels mostly use six patterns.

Schedule	How it works	Where it fits
5/2	five 8-hour days, two days off	office, accounting, purchasing, managers with fixed days off
2/2 (2 on, 2 off)	two days of 11–12 hours, two days off	floor, kitchen, checkout, bar — locations open 7 days a week
3/3	three 11–12-hour days, three days off	kitchen, production, warehouse, long trading days
1/3 (24 on, 72 off)	24 hours on, three days off	security, night reception, on-call roles
4/2, rolling 5/2	working days shift week to week	stores and services with uneven traffic
Flexible (demand-based)	shifts of different length around peaks	coffee shops and quick service with morning and lunch peaks

Pros and cons

5/2. Everyone understands it and hours are easy to count. But it doesn't cover weekends without a second team — and in hospitality, weekends are the busiest days.

2 on, 2 off. The most common shift pattern for frontline staff: two crews cover the location, and people get plenty of free days. The downsides are long shifts (attention drops by the 12th hour) and monthly hours that vary: 15 shifts one month, 16 the next. That's why 2/2 almost always needs averaged (period-based) hours tracking — more on that below.

3/3. Fewer handovers, which helps in the kitchen. But three long days in a row are tiring, and covering an absence is harder.

24 on, 72 off. Works where continuity matters and the workload is light. Not suitable for the floor or the kitchen: nobody can serve guests actively for 24 hours. Long shifts are also restricted by labour law — check whether they are allowed for the role in your country.

Flexible. Lets you avoid keeping five people in an empty dining room at 4 pm. But it is harder to plan, and harder for staff to plan their lives around: publish it early and avoid last-minute changes.

In practice, patterns are mixed: the manager works 5/2, cooks 3/3, servers 2/2, and a short "peak" shift is added on Friday night.

How to build a shift schedule in 7 steps

1. Calculate hourly demand

Start with the location, not the people. Take a few weeks of POS data and see how many checks come in each hour by day of the week. That tells you how many servers, cooks and cashiers you need from 10 to 12, from 12 to 3 and so on. That's your demand: "Friday 6–11 pm — 4 servers, 3 cooks, 1 bartender".

2. Define shift templates

Reduce all the variations to a few templates: "Morning 08:00–17:00", "Evening 14:00–23:00", "Day 10:00–22:00", "Night 22:00–08:00". Each has a length, a break and a short code for printing ("M", "E", "D", "N"). Templates end the chaos of "Anna until 21:30, Tim from 13:15".

3. Choose a rotation

Decide which pattern each role works: 2/2, 3/3, 5/2 or a custom sequence. Start the pattern from a specific date — after that it repeats on its own and you only edit the exceptions.

4. Collect the constraints

Before assigning people, gather:

vacations, sick leave and study days;
days when someone can't work or would like an extra shift;
minimum rest between shifts — so nobody closes at 11 pm and opens again at 7 am;
a weekly hours limit for each person (students, part-timers);
clearances to work — for example, a valid health certificate for kitchen staff where your rules require one.

5. Assign people and check coverage

Spread shifts so every hour's demand is covered and the workload is even: one server shouldn't work 220 hours a month while another works 90. Look for gaps (not enough people) and overstaffing. Check payroll cost too: what the scheduled hours cost against the location's budget.

6. Publish early

Publish a monthly shift schedule at least 1–2 weeks ahead. Every employee should see their own shifts and get a notification when something changes — not find out from a photo of a spreadsheet in a group chat. If you need signatures confirming staff have seen the schedule, print it with a signature column.

7. Agree on swap rules

Shift swaps are inevitable. Set a rule: the employee agrees with a colleague in the same role, the manager approves, and the schedule updates for both. Otherwise, within a month nobody knows who actually worked on Saturday.

Tracking working time and overtime

The schedule is the plan; you pay for what actually happened. Time tracking answers three questions: who came in, when, and how long they worked.

How to record clock-in and clock-out

A notebook on the counter and "I really did come in at 9" don't work. More reliable options:

a tablet at the location with a PIN and a photo — you can see who was standing at the tablet;
clocking in from a phone with geolocation — the employee must be within the location's radius;
the location's QR code, scanned by the employee;
a manual entry by the manager — always with a reason, so edits are visible.

Deal with late arrivals, early departures and forgotten clock-outs during the shift, not on the last day of the month.

Averaged hours tracking: why shift patterns need it

A standard working week is typically 40 hours. On a 2/2 pattern with 12-hour shifts, one week has 48 hours and the next has 24. Counting overtime week by week makes no sense: it "appears" one week and "disappears" the next.

So shift patterns use averaged (summarised) working time accounting: hours are compared with the norm not per day or week but over an accounting period — a month, a quarter or another term. Overtime is the hours above the period's norm, based on the working-days calendar.

Example: the month's norm is 168 hours and a server on 2/2 works 15 shifts of 11 hours — 165 hours, no overtime. Next month it's 16 shifts — 176 hours, 8 hours above the norm, paid as overtime.

When averaged accounting may be used, the maximum length of the accounting period, overtime limits and overtime pay are set by your country's labour law — in Kazakhstan, the Labour Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The rules are usually written into the company's internal policies. Before introducing a shift pattern, check it with a lawyer or an accountant.

Night and holiday hours

Night hours and public holidays are usually paid at a higher rate, so you need to see them separately — not just "12 hours per shift". A 22:00–08:00 night shift belongs to the day it starts on; agree on this up front, or hours will be double-counted or lost at the turn of the month.

The timesheet

The timesheet is the month's final record: for each employee and day it shows a code (present, night, day off, vacation, sick leave, business trip, absence) and the hours worked. Payroll is calculated from it, so mistakes cost money.

The required format depends on your country — ask your accountant. What matters more is where the data comes from:

a manual timesheet is pieced together from a notebook, chats and the manager's memory — it always has errors;
a timesheet built from clock-ins assembles itself: the plan comes from the schedule, the actual hours from clock-ins, and the manager only reviews exceptions.

To keep the timesheet accurate, follow a simple rule: every edit to a clock-in has a reason, and a closed month isn't changed.

Common mistakes

The schedule lives in the manager's head. The manager goes on vacation, and the location doesn't know who works tomorrow.
Publishing the night before. Staff can't plan their lives and leave for employers with steadier schedules.
No rest between shifts. A close followed by an open is a direct route to fatigue and mistakes.
Overtime "in your head". Without averaged tracking, overtime is either not paid (leading to claims) or overpaid.
The timesheet on the last day of the month. Nobody remembers who was late on the 12th.

The start of a shift is part of the schedule too. To make every location open the same way, use the restaurant shift opening checklist.

Shift scheduling in jeCheck

jeCheck has a Staff scheduling module for everyone at your locations, including frontline staff without access to the web dashboard. Shifts are placed from templates, and the system warns about overlaps, short rest and too many hours.

2/2, 5/2, 1/3, 3/3, 4/2, 1/2 rotations or your own sequence, copying a week ahead and auto-fill based on the location's demand, respecting time off, "can't work" days and hours limits.
Clock-in and clock-out on the location's tablet with a PIN and photo, or on the website with geolocation; late arrivals and early departures are counted automatically.
A timesheet with attendance codes, night, holiday and overtime hours (including averaged accounting), printing and Excel export.
Vacation and shift-swap requests, plus payroll and KPIs on the Network plan.

Scheduling, clock-ins and the timesheet are also available on the free plan for one location. Training and access rights for the same team are in Team & training.

Shift Schedules: 2-2, 5-2, 24/72 — How to Build One