Shift Planning: 8-Step Guide, Examples, and Best Practices

Shift Planning is a process of deciding on the number of manpower required, its timings, its placement, and the skills needed per shift. A well-designed shift plan will take into account working hours, breaks, leave, rest days, labor costs, and business demand, allowing the workforce to keep pace with business demand.

Enterprise businesses are more complicated when there are multiple branches, outlets, warehouses, facilities, or production sites involved in shift planning. Human resource departments need a balance of manpower cover, manpower availability, skills, overtime, and rest days, without generating unnecessary labor costs.

A well-designed shift planning process can solve these challenges by linking demand planning with employee availability, approved leave, working-hour regulations, skills, shift costs, and more. This provides HR and operations teams with a more solid foundation to build realistic schedules and not just rosters.

Our team collected data from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and found that in 2024, 6.5% of Singapore’s full-time workers were on shift work, representing a decrease from 9.4% in 2022. The data also reveals that shift work is primarily found in industries like accommodation, chemical and pharmaceutical products, electronics, air transport, and security.

Read this article to learn what shift planning is, how to develop a shift plan, how to calculate the staffing and shift costs, working hours in Singapore for various industries, KPIs, and how shift planning software can help with workforce management.

What Is Shift Planning?

Shift planning involves the workforce capacity available for each shift based on expected demand, operating hours, employee availability, skills, leave, rest requirements, and labour costs. It normally takes place before managers assign individual employees to specific shifts.

For businesses with multiple locations or extended operating hours, shift planning provides a framework for deciding how many people are needed, which roles must be covered, and when coverage should occur.

What Does a Shift Plan Include?

A practical shift plan typically includes:

• Move times and dates of each operation.
• Headcount needs as a result of workload.
• Where or in what business unit employees will work.
• Personnel requirements and skills needed for each shift.
• Availability of staff and leave approvals.
• Absences and work time.
• Consideration of rest days and overtime.
• Estimated labor costs.
• Coverage gaps and back-up needs.
• Changes caused by absence, shift swaps, or demand changes.

The level of detail depends on the business. A single-site office may only need a basic weekly plan, while a multi-location retailer, manufacturer, hotel, or logistics company may need planning by location, role, skill, and shift.

Who Is Responsible for Shift Planning?

Shift planning usually involves HR, workforce planners, operations managers, department heads, and site supervisors. HR may define workforce policies and employee availability, while operations teams provide demand forecasts and required staffing levels.

In larger enterprises, responsibility can be shared across locations. A central workforce team may create planning rules while branch or site managers review coverage and request adjustments based on local demand.

Shift Planning vs Shift Scheduling and Shift Rostering: What’s the Difference?

Although these terms are often used interchangeably, they describe different stages of workforce management. Shift planning focuses on determining workforce requirements, shift scheduling focuses on assigning employees to available time slots, while shift rostering creates and communicates the final employee roster.

This difference can be especially helpful for enterprise companies, as it allows planning at a higher level before managers finalize assignments.

Aspect	Shift Planning	Shift Scheduling	Shift Rostering
Primary Focus	Determine workforce requirements	Assign employees to available shifts	Publish and manage the final work roster
Main Question	How many people and skills are needed?	Who should work which shift?	What schedule will each employee follow?
Typical Output	Staffing requirements and coverage plan	Employee-to-shift assignments	Published weekly or monthly roster

Knowing this difference can help a business not form rosters without knowing exactly what manpower they need. Planning identifies and documents the workforce requirement; scheduling and rostering then allocate individuals to the identified requirement.

Why Effective Shift Planning Matters

Effective shift planning matters because it directly impacts operational coverage, labor costs, legal compliance, and employee well-being.

1. Maintain Coverage During Peak Demand

Businesses need enough employees when customer traffic, production volume, shipment activity, or service demand increases. Understaffing during peak periods can create queues, slower fulfilment, production delays, and service issues.

Shift planning helps managers to match the number of employees to the number of shifts. This allows you to expand coverage during busy times without having to automatically add people to all shifts.

ScaleOcean Atlas can support workforce planning by giving HR and operations teams a clearer view of employee schedules, availability, attendance, and staffing information when preparing shift requirements.

2. Reduce Avoidable Overtime Costs

Failure to plan properly can result in coverage gaps that managers fill with overtime, if they are able to. Overtime can be used to fill gaps in coverage that managers may not have planned. Overtime may be used to meet demand; however, if it becomes a regular practice, it can add to labor costs and lead to fatigue risks.

It is better to compare workloads to working hours available before the roster is published. Then managers can modify staff assignments, length of shifts, or staff numbers earlier.

3. Match Skills to Each Shift

Headcount alone does not guarantee adequate coverage. A manufacturing line may require a qualified technician, while a hotel may need front-desk, housekeeping, and maintenance skills across different periods.

Effective shift planning therefore considers skill coverage, not just the number of employees. This helps ensure that every important function has an appropriately qualified employee available.

4. Support Fair and Predictable Schedules

Employees benefit from schedules that provide reasonable advance notice and predictable working patterns. Frequent last-minute changes can make it harder for employees to manage personal commitments and may increase dissatisfaction.

Businesses can improve predictability by setting planning cut-off dates, recording approved leave before creating the roster, and establishing clear rules for shift swaps and changes.

Common Types of Shift Patterns

Various industries follow different shift patterns, which depend on the hours they operate, how often they are in demand, how often employees can work, and what services are required.

1. Fixed Shifts

Employees work the same shift pattern regularly, such as a morning shift from Monday to Friday. Fixed shifts provide greater predictability and can simplify workforce planning.

They are useful when demand remains relatively stable, and employees have consistent working-hour arrangements.

2. Rotating Shifts

Each employee rotates through various shifts following a specific shift plan, for example, morning, afternoon, or night.

Managers should take care in scheduling rest periods and the transition between shifts; however, shifts can be rotated to spread out less desirable working hours across employees.

3. Split Shifts

A split shift is when time is split on the same day. It may be appropriate for companies with seasonal patterns of demand, such as food services or hospitality.

For instance, a staff member may come to work at lunchtime and leave for the evening service.

4. Staggered Shifts

Staggered shifts involve employees working at different times as opposed to everyone starting at the same time. This can enable the business to cover more ground during high demand periods without adding to the length of day of all employees.

Scheduling staggered starts can help match the number of people needed during a specific hour with the number of people who are available at that time, as in the retail, customer service, and logistics sectors.

5. On-Call Arrangements

On-call working means that workers are on standby when the demand is unpredictable or extra staff is needed.

To prevent confusion about how employees must be notified, available, compensated, and activated, businesses should have clear policies and procedures.

6. Compressed Workweeks

A compressed work scheme means working a specified number of hours in fewer days. For instance, an organization could employ more hours per day, but the same hours per week.

Employers must ensure that any compressed or alternative arrangement for Singapore employees who are covered by Part IV is consistent with the working-hour requirements and employment terms of that arrangement.

How to Create a Shift Plan Step by Step?

The challenge in making a shift plan is to balance your business requirements, rules, and the availability of staff. Follow this step-by-step approach to creating a successful shift plan:

1. Forecast Demand by Time and Location

Begin by forecasting the demand for each site and time period. This may relate to customer transactions, production volume, shipment loads, bookings, service requests, or any other business-related metric.

The knowledge of historical demand trends can aid managers in determining high and low demand levels. For multi-location businesses, this analysis should be done on a site-by-site basis as there may be significant variations in staffing needs.

2. Define Staffing and Skill Requirements

Convert the demand prediction into the number of workers and capacities needed for each shift. Five general employees and one supervisor/certified technician may be needed for a shift.

Set minimum staffing requirements for each position prior to assigning to a specific person. This provides an obvious objective for the roster.

3. Collect Availability and Approved Leave

Review employee availability, annual leave, sick leave, training, and other planned absences before assigning shifts. Doing this early reduces the chance of creating a roster that cannot be fulfilled.

If you have a larger team, employee self-service can help make this process smoother, as employees will be able to make requests and view schedules without having to do it all manually.

Employee self-service capabilities in ScaleOcean Atlas, such as leave requests and the access to HR information, can help HR teams to incorporate approved employee availability in the planning process.

4. Set Working Hours and Planning Rules

Define the working-hour limits, break requirements, rest days, overtime rules, and internal scheduling policies that apply to the workforce.

For Singapore businesses, planners should also determine which employees fall under Part IV of the Employment Act before applying statutory working-hour and overtime rules.

5. Assign Shifts and Check Coverage

Assign staff based on their availability, skills, location, and staffing requirements for each shift. Ensure that employees are assigned to roles that match their capabilities and the needs of the shift.

Once the schedule is prepared, compare the scheduled staffing with the required staffing for each shift. If there are staffing gaps or excess coverage, adjust the assignments to maintain appropriate workforce coverage.

6. Review Costs and Approve the Plan

Calculate the expected labour cost for each shift, including regular hours, shift allowances where applicable, and potential overtime. Managers should review whether the proposed workforce plan meets demand without creating unnecessary labour expenditure. Approval can then move through the relevant HR or operations workflow.

This integration can bridge workforce data and timesheets, payroll, and employee expenses, providing companies with a wider foundation for labour cost analysis prior to approving workforce plans.

The system has been streamlined for use at Singapore businesses and is compliant with the PDPA and financial reporting requirements. It can also assist the broader finance functions related to GST and IRAS in Singapore.

7. Publish the Roster and Confirm Updates

Once approved, publish the roster through the appropriate employee channel. Employees should be able to see their assigned shift, location, working hours, and any relevant instructions.

Set a clear process for confirming changes. This is particularly important for multi-location businesses where a schedule update at one site may affect coverage elsewhere.

8. Compare Planned and Actual Hours

After the shifts are completed, compare planned hours with actual attendance and working hours. Identify overtime, absences, late arrivals, early departures, and unexpected coverage gaps.

This creates feedback for the next planning cycle. Over time, businesses can use these differences to improve demand forecasts and staffing assumptions.

Calculating Shift Planning by Staff Needs and Shift Costs

Shift planning should translate workload into staffing requirements before managers assign employees. Start with the required productive labour and the productive hours available from each employee.

A basic formula is:

For labour cost:

1. Estimate Workload and Productive Hours

Suppose a warehouse expects 70 productive labour-hours of work during a morning shift. Each employee is scheduled for an eight-hour shift with a one-hour meal break, giving 7 working hours for this simplified example.

Required staff:

The business therefore needs at least 10 employees to provide the planned productive capacity.

2. Calculate Required Staff per Shift

If the business wants a 10% planning buffer for demand variation, it can calculate:

The plan would therefore assign 11 employees rather than the base requirement of 10.

The buffer should reflect the business’s historical absence and demand patterns rather than becoming an automatic percentage applied to every shift.

3. Allow for Breaks and Absences

Breaks should not be treated as productive working hours. Absence assumptions should also be considered when determining whether the roster provides enough usable capacity.

For example, if the business needs 10 employees present and expects one employee to be unavailable, it may need to schedule 11 employees or maintain a qualified backup depending on the operation.

For employees covered by Part IV, MOM states that employees generally should not work more than six consecutive hours without a break; where continuous work up to eight hours is required, meal breaks should be at least 45 minutes.

4. Estimate Labour Costs and Overtime

Assume the 11 employees in the example receive a basic labour cost of S$18 per working hour and provide seven working hours each.

Regular shift cost:

If two employees each work two hours of overtime at 1.5 times the hourly rate:

Estimated total:

This is a simplified planning example. Actual payroll and overtime calculations should follow the employee’s contract, applicable employment rules, allowances, and other relevant requirements.

Examples for Calculating Shift Planning by Staff Needs and Shift Costs

Imagine a Singapore F&B establishment where the hours of 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM mark its busiest time. The manager thinks that the kitchen needs 6 people to work, 4 people in the service team, and 1 supervisor is necessary.

Thus, the minimum number of staff required is 11. Overtime should be considered last, and if two workers are out, the manager can decide if someone else at the outlet is able to fill in, or if shifts can be swapped, or if someone else from a different outlet is able to do it.

In a warehouse, use the expected number of order lines or shipment volume instead of customer transactions. This allows calculations to be flexible for various enterprise operating environments.

Shift Planning Rules to Consider for Singapore Business

Singapore companies need to be aware of the differences between coverage under the general Employment Act and Part IV. Additional protections for selected employees and hours of work, overtime, and rest days are covered in Part IV.

1. Check Employment Act Part IV Coverage

Part IV is for workmen with a monthly basic salary of not more than S$4,500 and non-workmen with a monthly basic salary of not more than S$2,600. Part IV does not apply to managers and executives.

Without identifying employee categories, it would not be advisable to apply the same shift rules to all employees. Working hours and scheduling requirements of employees who do not fall under Part IV may, however, still be covered by their employment contracts and other requirements.

2. Review Working Hours and Breaks

For employees covered by Part IV, common arrangements allow up to 44 hours per week, with daily limits depending on the work pattern. Shift workers can work up to 12 hours a day, provided their average working hours do not exceed 44 hours over a continuous three-week period.

Employees generally should not work more than six consecutive hours without a break. Where continuous work for up to eight hours is required, a meal break of at least 45 minutes should be provided.

3. Plan Rest Days and Monthly Rosters

The number of rest days for employees who are covered by Part IV is one per week. Under MOM’s rules, the rest day can be an uninterrupted 30 hours for shift workers.

If the rest day is not Sunday, then the employer should create a monthly roster and notify their employees about their rest days before the beginning of the month.

Advance planning is especially critical for businesses with shifts, whether they be continuous or rotational. Managers are advised to check rest-day patterns prior to approving a roster, and not to alter rest-day patterns after a roster is published.

4. Check Overtime Limits and Entitlements

Part IV employees are limited to no more than 72 overtime hours per month (unless exempted as provided). Covered employees must be paid at least 1.5 times the basic rate of pay for overtime.

If an employee works more than 70 hours a week, then time worked over the past 3-week period is overtime for shift workers. Therefore, firms should not consider overtime for shift workers one week at a time.

Weekly Shift Planning Example and Template

The staffing requirements should be obvious through a weekly shift plan before staffing. The following template is helpful to include: number of employees, employee assignment, skill, shift time, break, total hours, rest day, leave status, replacement required.

This plan can be modified for a multi-location business with location-specific requirements to help managers determine where coverage is adequate and where employees must be relocated.

1. Build a Weekly Coverage Table

Begin with seven days and specify the staffing for each shift. For instance, a retail store might have more employees working in the evening and on weekends than on weekdays in the morning.

The planning table should include staff required and staff available to ensure managers know at a glance if there are any gaps in staffing.

2. Check Hours, Skills, and Rest Days

After assigning employees, review their total planned hours, skills, leave, and rest days. An employee may satisfy the headcount requirement but still create a skill gap if the roster lacks a supervisor, technician, or other critical role. This aligns with CIPD, which recommends balancing labour supply and skills against workforce demand.

This review should also highlight staff who might be working too many hours or not enough hours. Before publishing a roster, managers can compare planned hours, employee availability, and the skills they need to identify any potential skill shortages before they occur and to develop a more well-rounded workforce plan.

3. Adjust the Plan for an Absence

Do not delete the assignment just because an employee has reported sick. Document the absence and the type of replacement, shift swap, or reassignment that will make up for that absence.

This establishes transparency as to the rationale behind the roster changes and enables managers to analyze which changes to the roster will have the highest rate of absence-related gaps.

Download the editable shift planning template:

Shift Planning Examples by Industry

There are many examples of shift planning in different industries, depending on the hours of operation, staffing requirements, and safety regulations.

1. Retail and Food Services

Retail and F&B businesses typically have certain demand patterns, such as day, time, promotions, weekends, and public holidays. Staffing levels can then be planned to be higher during periods of peak demand and lower when there is not a high demand.

Planners should also take into account the difference between locations when planning for multi-outlet businesses, rather than having one set staffing level for each location.

2. Manufacturing

Depending on the production needs, manufacturing plants can have either fixed shifts, rotating shifts, or continuous shifts. Production targets, machine availability, technician skills, safety requirements, and periods of the machine being handed over must all be taken into account when planning.

A shift plan can also enable production managers to determine if overtime is being used as a result of real demand or if the normal workforce plan is insufficient.

3. Warehousing and Expedition Logistics

The demand for warehouses and logistics can vary in accordance with inbound delivery demands, order quantities, cut-off times, and dispatch schedules. Therefore, there is often a variation in the need for staffing requirements between day, evening, and night shifts.

Human resource planning should take into consideration the roles of pickers, packers, supervisors, forklift operators, and more, as each position requires different skills and staffing requirements.

4. Healthcare and Hospitality

A healthcare/hospitality business could require 24-hour or around-the-clock coverage. Hotels will need front desk, housekeeping, security, maintenance, and other staff coverage at different times and locations, and healthcare operations will require clinical and support staff at different times.

These businesses must define minimum coverages, handovers, rest periods, and skills, as the number of staff might not equate to the business need.

How to Handle Shift Changes and Absences

With staff out sick or unavailable, it is inevitable that there will be some changes of staff. If staff will be absent due to illness or will be unavailable, there will be shift changes that need to be made. The objective is to fill the deficit of capacity without the need to work overtime or lay off workers at another plant.

1. Manage Sick Leave and No-Shows

When an employee reports sick, first identify the shift, role, location, and skill affected. Then check available employees who can cover the same requirement without creating another coverage problem.

The change should be recorded so managers can distinguish planned staffing from actual staffing during later KPI reviews.

2. Approve Shift Swaps

The decision to swap shifts should be based on an established process of employee communication, not a process based on individuals. Before accepting the change, managers should verify availability, skill requirements, working hours, and rest periods.

ScaleOcean Atlas can help managers to make changes to the schedule and send notifications to workers while keeping the changes visible, instead of using standalone email messages or spreadsheets.

3. Fill Gaps Across Multiple Locations

A multi-site enterprise can verify if another outlet has qualified workers that can substitute for the temporary absence. This strategy may be preferable to establishing overtime at the impacted site.

But before the transfer of coverage from one location to another, a manager should take into account travel time, employee availability, skill requirements, and working-hour limitations.

4. Record Changes and Notify Employees

Every change should capture the original assignment, reason for the change, replacement employee, approval, and notification status. This creates a clearer record for HR and operations reviews.

Staff should also be notified in a timely manner to be aware of changes to shift, location, or working hours.

Shift Planning KPIs to Track

Shift planning performance should be measured against both workforce coverage and labour efficiency. A business should not focus only on whether every shift was filled; it should also assess overtime, absence-related gaps, skill coverage, schedule changes, and actual versus planned hours.

Based on MOM’s employment statistics, 30.7% of establishments offered shift swapping in 2024, while the figure reached 73.8% in accommodation and food services. This suggests that scheduling flexibility can be particularly relevant in industries where employee availability and demand can change quickly.

For example, a Singapore hotel can track how often employees are rotating, when managers are filling vacancies, and how much overtime it is generating as a result of the employee rotation. A food-service group can also make a comparison between the number of employees they have planned and the number of employees that are on duty during lunch and dinner hours.

These are some good KPIs to consider:

KPI	Suggested Measurement	Purpose
Shift Coverage Rate	Covered shifts ÷ total planned shifts × 100%	Measures whether planned staffing requirements are met.
Schedule Adherence	Actual hours worked compared with planned hours	Shows how closely actual workforce deployment follows the plan.
Overtime Rate	Overtime hours ÷ total working hours × 100%	Highlights excessive reliance on additional working hours.
Absence Gap Rate	Shifts affected by absence ÷ total shifts × 100%	Shows how often absences disrupt planned coverage.
Skill Coverage Rate	Shifts meeting required skill coverage ÷ total shifts × 100%	Checks whether critical skills are available on every shift.
Shift Swap Fill Time	Average time between swap request and approved replacement	Measures how quickly managers respond to schedule changes.
Labour Cost per Productive Hour	Total shift labour cost ÷ productive hours	Helps compare workforce efficiency against labour costs.

For instance, if the business has 100 planned shifts and only 96 of them result in the required number of staff members for the shift, then its shift coverage rate is 96%. This should be done along with overtime and absence rates and will provide a further indication rather than attendance rates.

Workforce reporting and KPI analysis of attendance, timesheet, leave, payroll, and employee information is possible with ScaleOcean Atlas and can be given to HR teams. It also has a more holistic ERP system which connects HR to finance and other business processes, and facilitates eligible digital transformation projects for EDG and CTC claims.

Best Practice for Shift Planning

Effective shift planning is a compromise between business need, health and safety of employees, the law and business efficiency.

1. Advance Notice

Inform employees and managers promptly about published changes, therefore leaving/conflict. Planning on a regular schedule also helps to cut down on last-minute requests.

When leave and availability are needed monthly or regularly, determine which day of the month will be in advance of the leave roster being compiled by the planning team.

2. Employee Self-Service

Self-service minimizes the back-and-forth in administration by allowing employees to access their schedules, request leave time, and information about the workforce.

Also, this will allow employees to get a first-hand account of the schedule conflict situation before the final roster.

3. Open Shift Management

Unoccupied shifts can be beneficial for businesses to fill in when they need to fill shifts or when employees are unavailable. Managers can post open positions and populate these with qualified workers as necessary, along with their skill sets.

Some rules for approval should still be in place so that staff isn’t assigned dates that conflict with working hours or rest days, or that create issues with the coverage of skills.

4. Coordinate Workforce Planning with Shift Planning Software

Shift planning is more effective when compared to actual attendance, leave, overtime, payroll, and workforce data. This facilitates HR and operations teams to identify trends and avoid the same scheduling issues in the following week and the week after.

ScaleOcean Atlas HRIS provides HR workflows that are integrated with attendance, leave, payroll, employee information, and workforce processes in the HR landscape. This may cause businesses to adopt a more integrated working model of the workforce that is different to the spreadsheet model.

Conclusion

Shift planning is the process of determining the workforce, skills, working hours, and coverage required for each shift based on business demand. Effective planning considers employee availability, leave, breaks, rest days, overtime, skills, locations, and labour costs before the final roster is published.

For enterprise businesses, manual shift planning can become difficult when operations span multiple locations and employees have different skills, availability, and working-hour requirements. A structured process supported by accurate workforce data can help businesses improve coverage, reduce avoidable overtime, respond to absences, and create more predictable schedules.

ScaleOcean Atlas can support businesses with connected HR workflows covering attendance, leave, payroll, employee information, and workforce planning. Schedule a consultation with ScaleOcean to discuss your workforce requirements, shift planning process, integration needs, and implementation approach.