If scheduling stresses you out, AI and GPTs may be able to help. By knowing the proper prompts and being able to modify them, you can eliminate the guesswork and hours wasted creating staff schedules.
This works for multiple types of businesses including restaurants, dog walkers and groomers, and retail stores that are seasonal or year-round. And business size doesn’t matter as AI can be used to create staff schedules for companies with one shop, with area managers, and even with laborers and contractors across multiple sites.
By getting the prompts down correctly, you can make on-the-fly modifications for:
- People taking time off for vacation.
- Reducing staff during slower hours while keeping their hours at reasonable levels.
- Helping to ensure everyone gets enough or a fair amount of hours.
- Keeping employees that are less productive when they work together on fewer shifts together.
- Rotating who needs to take on which roles if certain responsibilities shift like cleaning or closing.
- Having a rotation of “on call” team members in case you need someone to fill in.
- Making sure each project has the right people assigned based on skills.
- Shift swapping and making sure nobody goes too far over or under with hours.
- Maximizing profitability by pairing people together into the most productive groups.
- Catering to individual needs (i.e., employees with kids that need to be picked up by 4 p.m. on Fridays cannot work past 3 p.m.).
The goal is to help you as a business owner or manager. By using AI, you can take back time that is wasted on work scheduling and refocus on your job.
Below you’ll find the steps to do the prompts in AI. These can work with ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and most others. From there, we share modifications you can use to refine the schedule based on your company and staff scheduling needs.
It’s a three-step process:
The initial prompt
The initial prompt will be the same for most companies where you need to enter the following basic information.
- Enter how many months or weeks you need the schedules for and upload a sample.
- Enter the working hours, including opening, closing, and weekends.
- Share the staffing needs and skills.
- Include a spreadsheet with all employees, including the information needed to properly staff your business.
- Input any legal requirements or company policies and make sure to double-check that none are violated.
- Add cost per hour or day for the employee if you need to stay within a budget.
- Note specific requirements like not being able to work before 9 a.m. or after 3 p.m. on a Friday.
Column names should match the prompt, so name them clearly. “Employee name,” “maximum hours per week,” “job title,” etc.
Here’s a sample prompt:
“Create a work schedule by week for the next three months including June, July, and August and export it into a spreadsheet. I’ve uploaded a sample called ‘XYZ,’ so you know the type of output I’m looking for.
The work hours are between X a.m. and Y p.m. Monday to Friday and X a.m. and Y p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. We’re closed from the 3rd of July to the 6th.
I need to have at least one of the following employees (A, B, or C) or one person with the job title X available to open or close each day, meaning they need to be in one hour before X a.m. and stay one hour after Y p.m., but they cannot open and close on the same day.
Please use the uploaded spreadsheet named ‘ABC,’ which has all the employee scheduling information. The rows represent the employees, and the columns feature the data to include on the schedule.
The columns include:
- The person’s name in the first column
- Minimum hours they need to work per week in the second column
- Days they cannot work in the third column
- Maximum number of hours in the fourth column for the time frame
- Job title, skills, or responsibilities in the fifth column
Please avoid scheduling any employee for more than 40 hours per week. No employee can work more than 9 hours per day. And each must have at least two days off per week and an hour for lunch each day.”
Modify based on your industry
In this step, you’ll want to modify the job titles or skills in the prompt if you do not do separate staff work schedules. Here’s an example: If you’re a restaurant owner, you may need at least one host and two servers; however, a contractor may need a carpenter and an electrician, but no plumber on specific weeks or at specific projects. Your goal is to be specific enough with your prompt so that the AI system can use what you provided in the spreadsheet and line it up in the schedule.
Now let’s take it a step further. Here’s an example of how you can get even more granular. Take the prompt above and add in something like, “Staff my restaurant while keeping the following in mind: On Mondays, Thursdays, and Sundays, I need at least two servers between 10 a.m. and noon with one host; I need three servers, one bus person, and one host between noon and 4 p.m.; and I need five servers from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. with two hosts and two bussers. From 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., I need one server, one host, and one bus person. Everyone should work at least 20 hours, but not more than 40. Please highlight any single employee that falls out of these hourly ranges. Please also pay attention to the last column which shares the hours employees cannot work.”
Another way AI can help is by scoping out projects with costs. This helps you budget for specialists and salaries. Here’s an example: “In month one, I need carpenters and concrete masons during weeks two and three, then again in weeks seven and eight. In weeks one and two, I need at least one electrician, and I need one plumber for half a week in week 4. Reference the cost per hour or day column and do not create any weeks that go over $X,000 total.”
If you have a seasonal gift shop or food stand in a beach town, modify it based on tourism projections. For example: “In May, I need X and Y during the first two weeks, and four employees working 6 to 8 hours apiece from Memorial Day (insert date) through the week after Labor Day (insert date). Then, for the next four weeks, I need X and Y staff at XX hours per day. The only employees available before Memorial Day and after Labor Day can be found in rows 1, 2, 5, and 10.”
Modifications for staffing changes
Sometimes employees quit and you are understaffed until you can hire. Other times, they request time off, take sick leave, or go on vacation and you have to get their shifts covered. There are ways to prompt and to plan ahead so that you are less likely to be under or overstaffed.
It’s also easy to use these modifications when you have schedules built a few months in advance, so that you can staff up for busy season if you’re in a seasonal business or so that you know how many more team members can request time off during a week or month without your business being understaffed. Here are some notes to consider.
- Vacation notices: If your team gives enough notice, you can have AI build schedules months in advance. As more requests come in, you’ll already know when you’ll be understaffed if someone else gets approved. You can further prompt the AI system with something like this, “Employee X who you have scheduled the week of ABC is not able to work. Please modify the week so everyone still works between 38 and 40 hours and nobody except for employees in rows 3, 7, and 9 go over 40 hours.”
- Holidays: AI can keep track of who has taken which holidays off, and who works all of them. This helps you know who to reward for always being available and who doesn’t take their fair share of the less ideal working days. “Add a column to the schedules that shows which employees have taken days off during the following weeks, and add the number of days or hours taken off.”
- Hiring: If you need to ramp up for the busy season, prompt AI to remind you when to begin advertising the job openings, when to start interviews, and when training must begin. “I need you to add the following tasks with my name found in row 2. We’ll need to begin advertising the jobs on week 2, to hire 5 staff members by week 4, and to train during weeks 5 and 6 so that we are on track for opening by week 7.”
- More productivity: If you track revenue and projects or tasks completed by team members, you can use this prompt as well, “When the following employees pair up (rows 2 and 5, rows 2 and 7, rows 3 and 7), profitability goes up. Follow the schedule requirements and pair these individuals as frequently as possible during time frame A to B.”
AI and GPTs can help you save time and make more money in some cases, by reducing your scheduling workload while making sure everyone gets the hours they need. They can help ensure that projects and shifts are fully staffed and use data to maximize employee productivity.
SmallBusinessLoans does not provide tax, legal or accounting advice. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only. You should consult your own tax, legal and accounting advisors.
