Open shifts

Open shifts are unassigned work periods posted by a manager that any eligible team member can claim, rather than being pre-allocated to a specific person in advance.

Instead of building a fully assigned schedule, a manager creates available slots and team members pick up what works for them. This is common in retail, hospitality, and healthcare, where staffing needs shift quickly and not every hour needs to be locked in ahead of time. It also suits part-time or casual staff who don’t have fixed hours.

How open shifts work in practice

A manager creates a shift without assigning it to anyone. Team members are notified through a scheduling app, group chat, or notice board, and whoever is available claims it. Depending on how the team is set up, claims are either approved automatically or reviewed by a manager first.

Open shifts come up in a few common situations: a scheduled person calls in sick, demand increases unexpectedly, or a manager intentionally leaves gaps in the schedule to fill based on actual need closer to the date.

Benefits of open shifts

For managers, open shifts remove the need to manually track down coverage every time a gap appears. The process becomes self-service instead of a round of phone calls. For team members, open shifts are a way to pick up extra hours on days that suit them, without committing to a fixed schedule.

This model works well for teams with a mix of full-time and part-time staff, or where some people want more hours and others prefer fewer.

Common challenges

If the same people always claim open shifts, workloads can become uneven. Some organizations set limits on how many open shifts one person can pick up in a given period, or use skill and role requirements to filter who can claim what.

Visibility matters too. If team members don’t see open shifts quickly enough, coverage gaps stay unfilled. Fast notifications make a real difference in how quickly shifts get claimed.

How Zelos helps

Zelos is built around the open shift model. Managers post available shifts and team members sign up through the app at their own discretion. Zelos sends instant notifications when new shifts are posted, which helps coverage happen faster without back-and-forth messaging.