Shift swapping

Shift swapping is when two or more employees of a business or organisation arrange to work each other’s shifts, usually because one of the parties is unable or would prefer not to work the shift they were originally given by their employer.

In the past, shift-swapping was often frowned on by managers since it required revisions to be made to the staff rota, which could easily cause confusion — sometimes even leading to staff missing shifts entirely.

Today, however, shift swapping has become a much more organised affair, and has come to be seen as an effective method of people management — reducing admin headaches for managers while improving the overall employee experience at a business.

Shift swapping software

When using people management platforms like RotaCloud, managers can choose whether to allow their staff to organise their own shift swaps using a staff rota app.

If this feature is activated by their manager, employees can agree between them the shifts they’d like to work for one another. This shift swap proposal is then sent through to their manager, who can quickly review it before approving or denying the swap with a couple of clicks, with the rota updating automatically.

By letting their staff to organise their own shift swaps in this way, managers not only boost employee wellbeing by allowing staff a degree of freedom and ownership of their shifts, but save themselves the headache of having to find cover in the event that an employee says that they’re unable to work one of the shifts that they’ve been given.

In RotaCloud, shift swaps can be enabled or disabled by managers at any time. Criteria can also be set so that only staff who are eligible to work a particular shift type can agree to swap shifts, giving managers complete control over the process.