Guide
How to create a shift schedule: step by step within the legal limits
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A good shift schedule answers three questions at once: what the work needs, what the law allows and how staff rest. This guide builds the plan in that order and, at every step, states which rule applies and its source.
1. Measure demand hour by hour
A schedule starts from hours, not people: how many people are needed at which hour of the day? In production that is the number of machines and lines, in a shop customer traffic, in a warehouse dispatch times. If you have clock-in data, past weeks’ real demand is the best starting point. A plan made without writing down demand copies habit.
2. Set the legal limits first
The limits should be known before shift types are written; a shift that breaks a limit is a problem whoever works it.
| Limit | What it says | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly time | At most 45 hours; the excess is overtime | Law 4857 art. 63, art. 41 |
| Daily time | May not exceed 11 hours | Law 4857 art. 63 |
| Rest break | Up to 4 hours 15 min · 4–7.5 hours 30 min · over 7.5 hours 1 hour; not counted as working time | Law 4857 art. 68 |
| Night work | The 20:00–06:00 period; night work as a rule may not exceed 7.5 hours | Law 4857 art. 69 |
| Night shift | A shift in which more than half of the work falls in the night period | Regulation on work in shifts |
| Rotation | At most one working week on nights, then a day shift | Law 4857 art. 69 |
| Rest between shifts | At least 11 uninterrupted hours at a shift change | Regulation on work in shifts |
| Weekly rest | At least 24 uninterrupted hours within each seven-day period | Law 4857 art. 46 |
3. Set the shift lengths
In a business that runs around the clock, the most common pattern is three eight-hour shifts. With a 30-minute rest break in each, net work is 7.5 hours, which fits the night shift exactly within the art. 69 limit.
| Shift | Rest break | Net work | Night shift? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 06:00–14:00 | 30 min | 7.5 hours | No |
| 14:00–22:00 | 30 min | 7.5 hours | No (2 hours at night) |
| 22:00–06:00 | 30 min | 7.5 hours | Yes — no overtime allowed |
Six days × 7.5 hours = 45 hours; staff working six days in this pattern reach the weekly limit and the seventh day is the weekly rest day. In a five-day pattern the week stays at 37.5 hours.
4. Choose a rotation pattern
Rotation decides who is on which shift in which week. In weekly rotation the crew works one week mornings, one week evenings, one week nights; since the rotation rule in art. 69 provides for at most one working week on nights, weekly rotation complies naturally.
Rotating forwards (morning → evening → night) makes it easier to keep 11 hours’ rest at a shift change. Moving backwards (e.g. from an evening shift to the next morning’s shift) may leave less than 11 hours between shifts; such transitions should be checked one by one in the plan.
5. Write down the change rules
- Who approves a shift swap? If staff can swap among themselves, manager approval and an 11-hour rest check should be required.
- How is an empty shift filled? Posting it and taking volunteers is both faster and fairer than phoning people one by one.
- How far ahead is the plan published? Staff need the plan a reasonable time in advance to plan their private lives.
- How does leave meet the plan? Approved leave should take precedence over a planned shift, and conflicts should be seen at planning stage.
6. Compare the plan with what happened
The plan is an intention; actual clock-in records say what happened. Compare the two at month end: a shift that always runs overtime points to understaffing, a shift that always starts late to the wrong start time. Next month’s plan is built from these differences.
Checking these rules by hand at every change is hard. Our shift scheduling software refuses definitions outside art. 63 and 68, warns on art. 69 and measures the 11 hours’ rest on shift changes.
Shift schedule FAQs
How long can a night shift be?
Night work as a rule may not exceed 7.5 hours (Law 4857 art. 69). On a 22:00–06:00 shift with a 30-minute rest break, net work is 7.5 hours. An exception exists, with the employee’s written consent, in work such as tourism, private security and healthcare.
How many hours of rest should there be between two shifts?
The regulation on work in shifts provides that at a shift change the employee is given at least 11 uninterrupted hours of rest. Moving from an evening shift to the next morning’s shift often cannot meet this; such transitions should be checked separately in the plan.
How should night and day shifts rotate?
Art. 69 of Law 4857 provides that workers on night and day shifts work at most one working week on nights and are then moved to a day shift the following week, in rotation. Weekly rotation complies with this rule.
Does the weekly rest day have to be Sunday?
No. Art. 46 of Law 4857 defines the weekly rest as at least 24 uninterrupted hours of rest within a seven-day period; the day can be set to suit the workplace. In shift-based businesses the weekly rest day can differ by employee.
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