How to create a shift schedule: a step-by-step guide

1. Start from coverage, not from people

First write down what each work site needs: opening hours, posts, how many people each post needs at each hour and with what skill. Those are the shifts you must fill. A roster that starts from “who is available” leaves gaps exactly where you look last.

2. The working-time rules that apply to everyone

In Greece every roster must respect the limits of the Labour Code (P.D. 62/2025), which implements the EU Working Time Directive. The essentials:

• Full time is 40 hours a week: 8 hours a day on a five-day week, or 6 hours 40 minutes on a six-day week (article 189).
• Daily rest: at least 11 consecutive hours between two working days (article 171; Directive 2003/88/EC, article 3). A shift ending at 23:00 rules out a 07:00 start the next morning.
• Weekly rest: 24 consecutive hours, normally including Sunday, plus the 11 hours of daily rest (article 173; Directive, article 5).
• Breaks: when the working day exceeds 4 consecutive hours, a break of at least 15 and at most 30 minutes, not at the start or end of the day (article 172). The Directive itself requires a break after six hours; Greek law goes further.
• Split shifts: the second part starts at least 3 hours after the first ends (article 172).
• Extra hours and overtime: hours beyond 40 are paid at a premium; legal overtime is capped at 4 hours a day and 150 hours a year, paid at +40% (article 194). Across the EU the average week, overtime included, may not exceed 48 hours (Directive, article 6).

Collective agreements in your sector may set better terms. Check them before you fix your shift pattern.

3. Record each employee’s constraints

After the law come each person’s rules: days they cannot work, shifts they prefer or exclude, posts they are trained for, whether they rotate, their minimum and maximum weekly hours. Record them once instead of remembering them every month.

4. Choose a shift pattern

• Fixed: the same people on the same shifts every week. Simple, but hard for 24/7 operations.
• Rotating: the team moves through morning, afternoon and night (for example 2-2-2-2). It spreads the hard shifts, but watch the 11 hours of rest at each change-over.
• Day by day: each day is planned separately. Suits retail, food service and seasonal hospitality.

5. Fill the shifts, then check for violations

Fill the shifts with the fewest available people first — nights, weekends, posts that need a skill. Then check the whole: hours per employee, rest between shifts, days off. A roster that works day by day can still break weekly rest across the week.

6. In Greece, declare it to ΕΡΓΑΝΗ before it starts

Businesses covered by the Greek Digital Work Card declare the roster to ΕΡΓΑΝΗ ΙΙ as the working-time organisation before the employee starts, and any change “at the latest on the day of the change” (Labour Code, article 581) — unless they chose the retrospective system. The full rules are in our Greek guide to the Digital Work Card.

7. Publish it and keep it current

The roster has to reach every employee, and every change has to reach them again. When leave and shift swaps are requested and approved in the same system, the roster everyone sees is the one that applies.

Mistakes that cost

• A night shift followed by a morning shift with less than 11 hours of rest.
• Seven working days in a row without a 24-hour weekly rest.
• Overtime not declared before it starts, under the advance system.
• A spreadsheet roster that no longer matches what was declared to ΕΡΓΑΝΗ.
• The same people always on the hard shifts, with no fair rotation.

Frequently asked questions