Where to Get Free Employee Schedule Templates (2026): Shift and Weekly Rotas

A rota is one of those jobs that eats an hour every week when the template fights you. Most small teams don't need software for it. A cafe, a salon or a cleaning crew can run on a spreadsheet, as long as it counts heads per day and prints cleanly. The free files below do that. The catch is the licence wording on each one, which isn't the same across the set.

Vertex42's schedule files compared

Vertex42 has the deepest free set for staff rotas, mostly in Excel with a Google Sheets version, and each file does a different job. Here's how they line up as of October 2026:

Template	Format	Best for	Licence label
Employee Schedule	Excel, Google Sheets	4 or 6-week rotas with separate day and night shift tables	Private Use
Shift Schedule (newer)	Excel	Showing each person's hours as a stacked bar chart over 7 days	Private Use
Shift Schedule (original)	Excel, Google Sheets, OpenOffice	Weekly station or task rotation with your own colour key	Company Use
Bi-Weekly Work Schedule	Excel, Google Sheets, OpenOffice	Printing blank sheets laid out like Outlook's work-week view	Private Use
Weekly Schedule	Excel, Google Sheets, Word, printable PDF	One person's week in 15 or 30-minute slots	Personal Use
Template.net schedules	Browser editor, many download formats	Wall rotas and lots of designs	Check each listing

The hospital rota inside the Employee Schedule

Jon Wittwer at Vertex42 built this template for a hospital with a 12-hour day shift and night shift, staffed by nurses who might be full time or part time. That origin shows in the design. Day and night shifts sit in separate tables, you put an X in a cell for each day someone works, and the Total rows and the Days column count the X's. So you can see at a glance how many people are on each day and how many days each person is doing.

Anything that isn't an X is ignored by the counts, so you can type your own codes for time off or on-call availability without breaking the totals. It covers 4 weeks by default; unhide the columns to the right of the table and it stretches to 6. That small detail is the difference between a rota you rebuild every month and one you plan six weeks ahead.

Vertex42's four-step method for a fair rota

The page includes a method I like, because it starts with people rather than software:

1. Print a blank schedule for each employee and ask them to write in the days they want to work, the days they need off and any holiday they've booked.
2. Type everyone's sheet into the spreadsheet.
3. Adjust the schedule to cover what the business needs, using the daily totals to spot short days.
4. Share the final version with each person as a printout or a PDF (in Excel 2010 or later, File, Save As, then PDF).

Vertex42 also suggests sharing a draft online so staff can fill it in themselves, but says that depends on your employees and their computer skills. It makes a point that's easy to forget when a software sales page is open in another tab: sometimes it's easier to use your own brain than automate a schedule, because there are things to factor in that a computer can't.

Shift charts, printable sheets and 15-minute rows

The newer Shift Schedule turns hours into a picture. Each employee's work times show as a stacked bar chart, with the 7 days of the week on the left axis, and you edit the times in a table under the chart. Vertex42 says the original version was designed for small businesses, especially fast food restaurants, small stores and departments where people change stations during the day. You shade or merge cells for shifts or use task codes from a key you customise, and you can add columns to make it a 24-hour schedule.

The Bi-Weekly Work Schedule is a different animal. It was designed to look like the work-week view in Microsoft Outlook, but it doesn't store entries in a database the way Outlook or Google Calendar does. It's for printing blank copies, or for copying the worksheet tab (right-click, Move or Copy) and renaming each tab by week number or date. The download includes 3 tabs covering 6 weeks. Variants add a weekly to-do list with check-mark drop-downs, icons that flag types of work, or a daily layout for multiple employees across several locations or projects.

For one person's diary-style week, the Weekly Schedule uses 15-minute rows for the main work hours and 30-minute rows before and after, with no formulas at all. A second version runs at 30-minute intervals throughout, and the simple version comes as a Word file too.

Template.net if you'd rather not open Excel

Template.net's free schedule section is built around an online editor, so you fill in and change the template in your browser. Its list runs well beyond staff rotas: weekly, daily, hourly, restaurant, break, maintenance and work-from-home schedules sit alongside an employee work schedule and a team schedule. As of October 2026 it lists downloads in formats including Word, Excel, PDF, Google Docs, Google Sheets and Apple Numbers, and it has an AI tool that drafts a schedule design from a prompt.

The category page describes these as editable layouts and doesn't mention head counts or totals, so if you need the sums done for you, open the one you pick and check before you build a month of shifts in it.

Read the licence label before you share the rota

Here's the part most people skip. Vertex42 doesn't use one licence across its schedule files. As of October 2026, the Employee Schedule, the newer Shift Schedule and the Work Schedule say Private Use, the original Shift Schedule says Company Use, and the Weekly Schedule says Personal Use, each marked not for distribution or resale. Check the label on the exact download you choose.

The Private Use agreement lets you customise the file for use within your company or organisation, and share your edited copy privately with the people on your team who need it. Two rules matter for a rota. In Google Drive, link sharing must be turned off, so no 'anyone with the link'. And you can't host the template on a website for others to download. Sharing the finished rota with your own staff is the kind of private sharing it allows.

Why a spreadsheet rota still suits a small team

When you run a small business, the rota is where fairness shows. A sheet that counts days per person makes it obvious if one person keeps getting the weekend, and a blank that staff fill in first makes them part of the plan. Once one spreadsheet stops being enough, compare free schedule makers or full employee scheduling software, and pair the rota with a timesheet template so the hours worked match the hours planned.

My advice

I'd start with Vertex42's Employee Schedule if you plan cover across days and nights, because the daily totals do the checking for you. I'd use the newer Shift Schedule if you want staff to see their hours as a chart, and the Bi-Weekly Work Schedule if you like printing blanks. Skip Template.net for the planning and use it for the version you pin on the staffroom wall. Whichever you pick, keep the Drive link private and don't upload the file to your website.

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Frequently asked questions

Where can I get a free employee schedule template?

Vertex42 has a free Employee Schedule Template for Excel and Google Sheets that counts how many people work each day, plus shift, bi-weekly and weekly versions. Template.net has free schedule templates you edit in your browser.

Is there a free shift schedule template for Google Sheets?

Yes. Vertex42's original Shift Schedule comes in Excel, Google Sheets and OpenOffice versions and is labelled Company Use. Its Employee Schedule Template also has a Google Sheets version.

Can I share a Vertex42 schedule with my staff?

Yes, privately. The Private Use agreement allows sharing your edited copy with people in your team or company who need it. In Google Drive, link sharing must be off, and the file can't be posted publicly.

How do I make a 6-week rota in the Vertex42 template?

The Employee Schedule Template covers 4 weeks by default. Unhide the columns to the right of the table to extend it to 6 weeks.

Does the Vertex42 work schedule save appointments like Outlook?

No. Vertex42 says it doesn't store entries in a database. You print blank copies, or copy the worksheet tab for each week and rename it by week number or date.