In short
What this page covers
- Three shifts, set up once
- Headcount that moves with the volume
- Roles on the shift, not just bodies
- The night shift on the same rota as the day
For warehouses
Rota software for warehouses, from the early shift to nights
Cover two or three shifts a day, move the headcount with the volume, and let the night hours count themselves. Free, for as many people and sites as you have.
Where the time goes
What actually goes wrong on a warehouse rota
These are the everyday situations that turn a rota into a source of mistakes, phone calls and needless cost.
01
Peak week needs thirty pickers, February needs eighteen
Volume does not sit still. The fortnight before Christmas you are running every shift full and still ringing the agency, and by February the same rota has people leaning on a pallet truck waiting for work to arrive. A rota you copy from last week can only ever be last week.
02
Four pickers on and nobody to drive the forklift
The headcount looked right when you built it. Then the shift starts, every counterbalance driver you have is on the same rest day, and the pallets sit in the yard while the pick face empties and six people wait for stock to come to them.
03
The night shift nobody in the office ever sees
Nights run ten until six and everyone who plans them is asleep for all of it. You find out that two people did not turn in at twenty past seven the next morning, from the state of goods-in rather than from anybody telling you.
04
Handover happens in a notebook by the door
The lates finish what the earlies started, and the only record of where they got to is whatever got written on a pad or said to whoever was standing near the door. Half an hour of every shift goes on working out what happened on the last one.
05
Agency staff who are not on any rota
You book eight agency pickers for peak and they exist nowhere except an email from the agency. Nobody in the building is sure which of them is meant to be on nights, and the invoice is the first proper record of who worked what.
06
Overtime that surfaces at month end
Through December people stay late and pick up extra shifts, and all of it is real work. It just was not anywhere you could see it while it was happening, so the first full tally arrives after the month has closed and the conversation is about money instead of the rota.
How InShift fixes it
A rota for a building that runs around the clock and a volume that will not sit still. Everything below is in the free account, with no cap on people or sites.
Solution 1
Three shifts, set up once
An early, a late and a night. Set the hours once, with the number of people each one takes and the roles it has to have, then drop them across the week. If the earlies need fifteen minutes with the lates, build the overlap into the template and the handover happens on every shift from then on.
Solution 2
Headcount that moves with the volume
Twelve pickers on the early in peak week and eight in February, changed on the shift rather than rebuilt in a spreadsheet. You see the number on every shift before you publish it, while there is still time to do something about it.
Solution 3
Roles on the shift, not just bodies
Set up the roles you actually run: picker, packer, forklift driver, goods-in. Each shift shows you which of them are filled, so a night with no forklift driver on it looks wrong on your screen a week before it looks wrong in the yard.
Solution 4
The night shift on the same rota as the day
Nights are not a separate spreadsheet living on one laptop in the office. They are on the same week, and when a picker does not turn in at ten you post the shift as an open shift instead of ringing round in the dark.
Solution 5
Agency and seasonal staff cost nothing to add
Add them like anyone else. No per-person charge and no cap, so the eight you take on for December go on the rota for free and come off again in January. Everyone in the building is on one rota, whoever pays them.
Solution 6
Nights and overtime counted as they are worked
Hours add up as the rota is worked, at each person's own hourly rate, and the whole lot exports to Excel for payroll. The extra shifts people pick up through December are on the rota while they are happening, so the tally is not something you rebuild once the month has closed.
A day on the rota in a warehouse
A unit running three shifts across the clock in a normal week, not peak. Note the fifteen minutes of overlap built into each handover, and a forklift driver on every shift including nights.
| Time | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 06:00-14:00 | Shift supervisor | Takes the handover from nights, sets the pick list for the day |
| 06:00-14:00 | Pickers x6 | The early clears what the night shift packed |
| 06:00-14:15 | Forklift driver | Goods-in from six, then replen: the last fifteen minutes is the handover |
| 14:00-22:00 | Pickers x8 | The afternoon drop and the last courier collection at eight |
| 14:00-22:00 | Packers x3 | Anything picked before four goes out tonight |
| 22:00-06:00 | Night crew x4 | Two packers, a forklift driver, a supervisor: nobody sees this shift, but the pick face is full by six |
Try it without an account
Three free tools that need no sign-up and no email. Build a rota or add up hours right now, and move to an account when the team has to see it.
Frequently asked questions
How many pickers do I need to cover three shifts?▾
Start from the hours, not the people. Three eight hour shifts is 24 staffed hours a day, and seven days of that is 168 hours for every position on the floor. One full time person covers around 37.5 of them, so each position needs about four and a half people before anybody is off sick or away, which is why sites running the clock tend to end up with five. Multiply that by how many you need on the pick face at once. Put your real shifts into the rota and you will see your own number rather than this one.
Can the rota follow the volume through peak?▾
That is the point of building it around shifts rather than a fixed pattern. Put twelve on the early through Black Friday and eight on it in February by changing the shift itself, and the coverage shows on screen before you publish. The agency and seasonal people you bring in for peak go on the same rota as everyone else, at no charge, because there is no per-person pricing to make you think twice.
How does the team see the rota?▾
They install the InShift app on their phone from the App Store or Google Play and enter a six digit code you give them. That is the whole setup, no work email address and no password to forget, which matters when half your floor has never had a company login. When you change the rota they get a push notification, so nobody works from a photo of the sheet by the clocking-in machine.
What happens when someone does not turn in for the night shift?▾
Publish it as an open shift. Everyone who could work it gets a notification at the same moment, and the first one to take it has it. You approve with one tap. It is one action at ten at night instead of twenty phone calls to people who are asleep.
Does it work out nights and overtime?▾
It adds the hours up as the rota is worked, multiplies them by each person's hourly rate, and exports the timesheet to Excel for any period you like. A night is hours on the rota like any other shift, and so is the extra one somebody picked up in peak week, so both are in the total while there is still a month to look at. Rates sit on the person, so a picker moved to your other site is counted at their own.
Is it actually free, or free until it is not?▾
Free. Every feature, as many people and sites as you like, no card and no trial clock ticking. There is no billing in the product at all, which is the shortest way to say it: put your entire peak workforce on it in December and January costs the same as July, which is nothing.