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When must a shift schedule be ready?

There is no general statutory deadline for a shift schedule. Four days is what § 12 (3) TzBfG says for on-call work. What that means for your planning.

There is no general statutory deadline for when a shift schedule has to be ready. The employer sets working time under his right to give directions – but he has to announce it in good time and in concrete terms. The number that appears in almost every guide comes from a provision that covers exactly one case.

Why there is no blanket deadline

There is no law that names a number for every company and every industry. The shift schedule is an expression of the employer's right to direct work: you decide when work starts and ends, unless something else has been agreed. The limit is therefore not a deadline, it is predictability. The announcement has to come early enough and be precise enough that the employee can plan their free time. Telling someone the day before when they work is not an announcement in good time – even though no paragraph names a number.

This becomes relevant in two situations: when the schedule is first published, and with every change after that. The two are judged differently.

The four days – and the case they apply to

The much-quoted number has a clear source: § 12 (3) TzBfG, on-call work (Arbeit auf Abruf).

Der Arbeitnehmer ist nur zur Arbeitsleistung verpflichtet, wenn der Arbeitgeber ihm die Lage seiner Arbeitszeit jeweils mindestens vier Tage im Voraus mitteilt.

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(The employee is only obliged to work if the employer tells him at least four days in advance when that work takes place.)

That is an obligation towards on-call staff: if you employ people without fixed hours, you have to say four days ahead when they work – otherwise they do not have to come. For the ordinary shift schedule with agreed working time, the provision says nothing directly. There it stays at "in good time", and courts often use the four days as a yardstick when judging whether a short-notice change was reasonable. A statutory minimum deadline for every shift schedule does not follow from that.

With a works council, the deadline is negotiated

Where a works council (Betriebsrat) exists, the timing of working time is subject to co-determination:

§ 87 Abs. 1 Nr. 2 BetrVG: Beginn und Ende der täglichen Arbeitszeit einschließlich der Pausen sowie Verteilung der Arbeitszeit auf die einzelnen Wochentage.

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(Start and end of the daily working time including breaks, and the distribution of working time across the days of the week.)

Co-determination applies "insofar as no statutory or collective agreement regulation exists" – and that explains why the decisive number is often not in a statute at all: the notice period sits in a works agreement. A collective agreement can also set a deadline, in some industries considerably more than four days. If you need a reliable number, that is where to find it – not in the Working Time Act.

What "in good time" means in practice

• The schedule has to be complete. A plan published "subject to change" is not an announcement.
• The schedule is not a promise for all time. Changes afterwards are allowed, but they have to remain reasonable. Whether they are is decided case by case – with the four days as the usual yardstick.
• Voluntary is always fine. If an employee takes a short-notice shift, that is their right and no breach of the schedule.
• Record what goes beyond regular working time. § 16 (2) ArbZG requires the employer to record working time that exceeds the daily working time under § 3 sentence 1, and to keep the records for at least two years. The practical route is to take that from the same data the schedule comes from.

The difference between a schedule that holds and one that has to be renegotiated every week rarely lies in the deadline. It lies in whether absences, qualifications and stand-ins are already part of the picture when the shift is created.

Where schedule and time meet

On Telesherpa your agent builds both from the same objects: employees with role, contract scope and qualification, shifts with date, time window and area, holiday and sickness as an absence with a period. Plus the links that are otherwise kept in someone's head – which shift belongs to which employee, which stand-in belongs to which absence. Double bookings and gaps become visible instead of turning up during the week. The planner, the team and payroll preparation all see the same state.

You say it in one sentence: "Build me a shift and holiday schedule for my team on Telesherpa." Afterwards the week is available as a list – and who is planned where on which day.

• Task: Employee scheduling software for small teams
• Hours alongside it: Timesheet software for small teams
• How the platform works: How the platform works (German)
• What it costs: reading 1 credit, new object 10 credits, action 20 credits. One credit is one cent, the start is 5,000 credits.

In short

• There is no general statutory deadline for a shift schedule. The standard is "in good time and in concrete terms".
• Four days is what § 12 (3) TzBfG names – for on-call work.
• With a works council, working time is subject to co-determination (§ 87 (1) no. 2 BetrVG); the notice period often sits in the works agreement.
• A collective agreement can require longer notice. That is where the number for your company comes from.
• Not legal advice: the statute, your collective agreement and your works agreement are what count.