Shift swaps
Let staff trade shifts between themselves, with or without your approval. How candidates are suggested, what each status means, and where reciprocity shows up.
How a swap flows
An employee picks one of their own shifts and offers it. The colleague they offered it to accepts or declines. Depending on your organization's setting, that is either the end of it or the point where a manager decides.
The statuses you will see:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pending | Waiting on the colleague. |
| Pending manager approval | They accepted; it is on your desk. Nothing has moved yet. |
| Accepted | Done. The shift has changed hands. |
| Declined / Cancelled | Refused by the colleague or by you, or withdrawn by the person who offered it. |
Requiring your approval
One setting on the organization decides whether swaps complete on their own or wait for a manager. It is off by default — most teams want people solving their own coverage problems without a queue — and the same switch also governs open-shift claims.
Turn it on where the trade has consequences beyond the two people involved: regulated ratios, skill-gated stations, anywhere overtime is expensive.
Finding someone to swap with
Rather than guessing, Weekwright can list who could actually take a given shift — filtering on availability, existing shifts, approved time-off and the skills the position requires. An employee asking the assistant "who can take my Friday?" gets that list back directly.
It saves the round of group-chat messages that a swap usually starts with, and it means the offer goes to somebody who can legitimately say yes. Candidate suggestion is part of the analytics surface, so it needs Pro; offering and accepting swaps works on every plan including Starter.
Who covers for whom
On Pro and above, swap history is analysed for reciprocity — who regularly picks up other people's shifts, and who only ever hands theirs away. It is one of the few signals that reliably precedes somebody quietly burning out or quietly resenting a colleague.
It lives in Insights, next to attendance patterns and cross-week fairness.
Common questions
- Can somebody swap into a shift they are not qualified for?
- No. The same skill requirements that gate assignment gate a swap, and a swap that would create an overlap with the receiver's existing shift is refused.
- Does a completed swap notify anyone else?
- The two people involved are notified, and managers are notified when a swap is waiting on them. The rest of the team is not — a trade between two colleagues is not everyone's business.
Related
Open shifts
Post coverage you cannot fill and let eligible staff claim it. Who is eligible, how the approval gate works, and why a claim can still be refused.
Guide for employees
Everything you can do as a team member: see your week, set your availability, book time off, swap a shift, pick up extra hours, and get your shifts into your own calendar.
Availability and time off
The difference between a recurring availability pattern and a dated time-off request, how each one affects scheduling, and the seven request types.