What is shift scheduling?

Shift scheduling is deciding who works when, in which role, usually a week at a time. If you run a restaurant, bar or café with hourly staff, you do it every week. Some weeks it takes twenty minutes. Some weeks it eats your Sunday.

Why it's hard

Several things pull against each other at once:

• Availability: who can work when, and who just told you they can't.
• Roles: who works the line, the floor or the bar.
• Hours: keeping people under their limits and giving hours to those who want more.
• Fairness: spreading good and bad shifts so nobody feels shortchanged.
• Coverage: having enough people in each role at the busy times.

Any one of these is manageable. All of them together, for a team that changes every month, is why many managers copy last week and hope nothing changed.

The usual tools

For a long time this meant spreadsheets, whiteboards and a printout in the back. Scheduling software moved the grid online. Many tools then added an employee app, which works when everyone installs it and keeps notifications on, and falls apart when they don't.

Two newer approaches

The first is sending schedules by text, so staff don't need an app at all. It still needs each employee's consent before you text them.

The second is AI-assisted drafting. You describe your roles, hours, staffing needs and who's available, and the software proposes a week. A draft can still be wrong, so the manager has to check it before anyone sees it.

What to ask of a tool

• Do staff need to install an app?
• Is the price flat, per user or per location? Do the math for your team.
• Can you edit a published schedule without staff seeing half-finished changes?
• When someone calls out, what happens if nobody can cover?
• How do you get your data out?

Where Convey fits

Convey is for one manager scheduling one location, starting with restaurants. Staff who opt in get their schedule by text with nothing to install. Pricing is free up to 10 active employees and $19 a month flat after that. AI drafts are a Pro feature and you review them before publishing. Edits stay pending until you send updates. When someone calls out and nobody can cover, Convey tells you it's your call. You can ask us for a copy of your data at any time.

Related reading: SMS scheduling · No-app scheduling · For restaurants.