The number of scheduling tools available may seem overwhelming at times, which can make choosing the right one a difficult task. Whether you’re a small business that’s been relying on Excel spreadsheets or a large company switching from your existing employee scheduling tool, learning what’s available can help you choose the right one for your business.The best employee scheduling software for you will be one that helps you save time on schedule planning, streamline team communication, cut labor costs, and offers pricing that works with your budget.
Workforce.com
Best for best for 20+ staff businesses looking to optimize their staffing levels and reduce labor costs with AI.
Sling
Best for businesses that need a simple solution that offers messaging and communication features.
Shiftboard
Best for medium- to large-sized businesses and those in the oil and gas, petrochemical, and manufacturing industries.
TCP Humanity
Best for businesses of all sizes that are seeking an affordable scheduling solution.
Skedulo
Best for companies where employees are in non-traditional environments, such as remote workers and field workers.
Connecteam
Best for medium- to large-sized businesses that are looking for scheduling software that also offers project management features.
Ceridian Dayforce
Best for medium and large businesses in need of scheduling software with broader human capital management functions.
When I Work
Best for small businesses looking for a basic employee scheduling app that’s simple to use.
Employee scheduling apps are platforms that allow you to create employee schedules and track time and attendance, and they often connect to payroll tools to make payroll easier. A good employee scheduling app should help you save time on scheduling processes, reduce costs, and help make time and attendance easier for your employees.An employee scheduling app should offer:
Best for best for 20+ staff businesses looking to optimize their staffing levels and reduce labor costs with AI.
Workforce.com was created as a solution for companies’ hourly employee scheduling, time and attendance, and labor compliance needs.
Workforce.com is used by businesses of all sizes and is popular in the hospitality, healthcare, tourism, entertainment, and retail industries. Customers include Domino’s, The Amenity Collectvie, the Lake Elsinore Storm, and Patient First.
The Business plan includes employee scheduling, time and attendance, labor forecasting, real-time staffing alerts, absence management, wage and hour compliance, staff communication tools, labor analytics, and payroll and HRIS integration. The Enterprise plan includes all Business plan features plus business intelligence and custom reporting, auto-scheduling, custom integrations, single sign-on capabilities, location and team hierarchy, and a dedicated account manager.
Workforce.com offers a Business-level plan for companies with 20–2,000 employees and an Enterprise-level plan for larger companies. Contact sales staff for a price quote, or start a free trial.
Best for businesses that need a simple solution that offers messaging and communication features.
Sling was created to help companies with hourly shift employees with their scheduling, time tracking, and communication needs.
Sling is often used by small and medium-sized businesses in the education, healthcare, restaurant, and retail industries. Customers include Vessel NOLA, Expeditors, and The Arches.
The Free plan includes shift scheduling and templates, shift offers and available shifts, time-off requests, long-term scheduling, news sharing, and announcements. The Premium plan includes all Free features plus shift swapping, schedule templates, unavailability, calendar synchronization, group and individual messaging, mobile time tracking, timesheets, early clock-in prevention, auto clock-out, labor cost management, budgeting, and more. The Business plan includes all Premium features plus auto assigning and tags, kiosk time tracking, attendance reports, late arrivals, holiday pay, PTO management, reporting, employee documents, and more.
Sling offers a Free plan, a Premium plan for $1.70 per user per month, and a Business plan for $3.40 per user per month.
Best for medium- to large-sized businesses and those in the oil and gas, petrochemical, and manufacturing industries.
Shiftboard was created to provide workforce scheduling software to product-centric and service-centric organizations that align with strategic business goals.
Shiftboard is used by many medium-sized and enterprise-level companies in the healthcare, non-profit, IT, transportation, and manufacturing industries. Customers include Medline, Shell, and Lush.
SchedulePro’s Enterprise and Enterprise Plus plans include scheduling workflows, shift pattern rotation, employee eligibility and availability, shift bidding and trade, on-call and overtime volunteers, email and in-app notifications, employee self-service, auto scheduling, demand-based scheduling, compliance, reporting, workforce management, and integrations. ScheduleFlex’s Business and Enterprise plans include scheduling and communication features like auto scheduling, automated notifications and reminders, shift trading, schedule preferences, time-off requests, advanced scheduling features, compliance, reporting, workforce management, and integrations.
Each of Shiftboard’s products offers two plans. SchedulePro offers an Enterprise plan and an Enterprise Plus plan, while ScheduleFlex offers a Business plan and an Enterprise plan. Contact Shiftboard’s sales team directly for pricing.
Shiftboard | SchedulePro User Reviews & ScheduleFlex User Reviews
Best for businesses of all sizes that are seeking an affordable scheduling solution.
TCP Humanity was created to streamline daily workforce management and employee scheduling while integrating with HCM and payroll platforms.
TCP Humanity is used by companies of all sizes in the healthcare, retail, higher education, food and beverage, and health and wellness industries. Customers include Safeway, Dollywood, and Firebirds.
TCP Humanity’s Starter plan includes basic scheduling features for teams like scheduling and shift trades, availability and time-off requests, mobile app, and notifications. The Classic plan includes all features of the Starter plan plus auto-fill scheduling, real-time cost and labor budgeting, compliance, reporting and analytics, basic time clock, workforce management, payroll exports, and more. The Enterprise plan includes all Classic features plus demand-based scheduling, open API access, and HCM integration. All plans include 24-hour support.
TCP Humanity offers three plan tiers with custom pricing, including a Starter plan, Classic plan, and Enterprise plan. Contact TCP Humanity’s sales team directly for pricing.
Best for companies where employees are in non-traditional environments, such as remote workers and field workers.
Skedulo was created as a platform to boost efficiencies when managing a deskless, mobile workforce, including scheduling, managing field work, and more.
Skedulo is used by many medium-sized businesses in the healthcare, health and wellness, real estate, and construction industries. Clients include Solace Pediatric Home Healthcare, American Red Cross, and ServiceMaster Clean.
The Schedulers plan includes appointment booking, assigning resources, dispatching work to resources, managing leave and unavailability, filtering job data through calendars and other views, tracking resource actions, and collaboration with field teams. The Mobile Workers plan includes the Skedulo mobile app, SMS and push notifications, the ability to create and schedule jobs from the mobile app, submitting availability and leave requests, mobile forms and data collection, and more.
Skedulo offers two with custom pricing, including a Schedulers plan and a Mobile Workers plan. The company also offers services for COVID testing and vaccine administration. Contact Skedulo’s sales team directly for pricing.
Best for medium- to large-sized businesses that are looking for scheduling software that also offers project management features.
Connecteam was created as an all-in-one, easy-to-use scheduling app to manage non-desk employees and streamline communications, task management, and training.
Connecteam is used by businesses of all sizes in the health and wellness, retail, consumer goods, and hospitality industries. Clients include Foot Locker, Soda Stream, and Mason Construction.
Connecteam’s Free plan includes full access to the platform’s most popular features, including the Operations, Communications, and HR & Skills hubs. The paid Basic, Advanced, and Expert plans include time clock, job scheduling, forms, and quick task features within the Operations hub, as well as Starter Plan access to the Communications and HR Skills hubs. Enterprise-level accounts include a personal account manager, private company branding, two-factor authentication, biometric lock, API access, and additional advanced features.
Connecteam offers a free Small Business plan for up to 10 users. Paid plans include Basic, Advanced, and Expert, with costs ranging from $29 per month to $99 per month for the first 30 users. Connecteam also offers custom Enterprise packages.
Best for medium and large businesses in need of scheduling software with broader human capital management functions.
Ceridian Dayforce is a cloud-based HCM platform created as an all-in-one solution for HR, time tracking, workforce management, payroll needs, and more.
Ceridian Dayforce is frequently used by medium to large businesses in the retail, healthcare, non-profit, financial services, and hospitality industries. Customers include Organic Valley, El Pollo Loco, and Prince Resorts Hawaii.
Ceridian Dayforce’s HCM platform includes workforce management, HR tools and analytics, payroll services, employee benefits, talent intelligence for recruiting, engaging, and retaining top employees, and more. Dayforce also offers services like tax filing, education, implementation, configuration, and consulting. The platform’s workforce management features include location-based time tracking, strategic scheduling, absence management, and global compliance management.
Contact the Ceridian Dayforce sales team directly for pricing.
Best for small businesses looking for a basic employee scheduling app that’s simple to use.
When I Work was created to help businesses schedule employee shifts, track time and attendance, and improve communication with hourly employees.
When I Work is used by many small and medium-sized businesses in the healthcare, consumer services, food and beverage, and retail industries. Clients include Walgreens, Culvers, and Ace Hardware.
When I Work’s Standard and Advanced plans both include unlimited users, up to three administrators, team messaging, availability and time off management, a workplace dashboard, document storage, notifications, multi-factor authentication, auto scheduling, a schedule builder, schedule templates, labor planning, multiple schedules or locations, basic scheduling rules, overtime visibility and management, shift swapping, shift bidding, and more. The Advanced plan also includes advanced scheduling rules, role permissions, custom reports, API key access, single sign-on, and more. Both the Standard and Advanced plan users can opt into additional time and attendance and on-demand pay features.
When I Work’s Standard plan ranges from $2.50 to $4 per user, and the Advanced plan ranges from $6 to $8 per user.
If you’re using manual timesheets, spreadsheets, Google Calendar, or other basic tools for staff scheduling and shift management, you’re probably spending more time than necessary on it and potentially losing money.Employee scheduling apps make the scheduling process quicker with schedule templates, help you fill open shifts quickly, and avoid scheduling conflicts, no shows, and more. Many include features like forecasting and budgeting that help save on labor costs.Manual scheduling processes, like spreadsheets, leave a lot of room for errors and take longer to create. Mistakes in scheduling could mean that you end up with too many employees scheduled or not enough and having to make phone calls to fix staffing issues. Manual scheduling also opens up the possibility of timesheet errors that are costly to business owners.
If you’re using a human capital management (HCM), human resources information system (HRIS), human resources management system (HRMS), or a separate payroll system, make sure the employee scheduling software you choose can integrate with them.Robust integration features mean you can easily connect your scheduling software to popular HRIS and accounting tools like Gusto and QuickBooks. Integrations help reduce the amount of manual administrative work you need to do, like entering employee information. It also helps ensure your payroll and accounting are more accurate.
Workforce.com is a best-in-class, cloud-based workforce management tool that easily integrates with many other HR-related systems. It allows managers to save time they would typically spend creating employee schedules, collecting employee and shift data, and performing other administrative tasks.Features like AI predictive analytics help managers determine future staffing needs based on historical trends to reduce labor spend and improve profitability. Managers can also compare scheduled wage costs against actual costs in real time to make adjustments, and apply up-to-date labor law templates to schedules to reduce the risk of labor and compliance violations. An intuitive mobile app lets users view their work schedules, request to swap shifts with a team member, ask for time off, clock in and out, and more, making their work life easier.To learn more about how Workforce.com can help you make employee shift scheduling easier and help you save on costs while connecting to your other HR systems, book a call today.