Open the spreadsheet and locate the primary ‘Employee Name’ column on the left-hand side. Type the first and last name of each staff member into the individual rows. We recommend grouping employees by role (e.g., listing all ‘Servers’ first, followed by ‘Kitchen Staff’) to make the schedule easier to read.

Note: If you need to add more rows, right-click on a row number and select ‘Insert.’ Be careful not to break the existing formulas when adding new lines.

Click into the cell for the specific day you want to schedule. Enter the start and end time for the shift (e.g., ‘9:00 AM – 5:00 PM’). You can also type specific roles or notes, such as ‘Opener’ or ‘Training,’ directly into the cell.

Important: Since this is a manual spreadsheet, it will not alert you if you accidentally double-book an employee or schedule them during their time-off request. You must check their availability manually before finalizing the times.

This template includes basic formulas to sum up total hours, but it cannot apply labor laws. To handle overtime, you must manually review the ‘Total Hours’ column at the end of the week. If an employee exceeds your local overtime threshold (e.g., 44 hours in Ontario), you must manually separate their hours into ‘Regular’ and ‘Overtime’ (1.5x) before processing payroll.

Warning: Manual overtime calculation is the #1 cause of payroll errors. If you have more than 5 staff members, we recommend using TimeWellScheduled to calculate these rates automatically.