Bid-based rostering is a scheduling model where a business publishes all the work available for an upcoming period — which shifts, which roles, how many people each needs — and staff submit bids for the specific positions they want, before a manager allocates who actually gets placed.

It's the opposite starting point to traditional top-down assignment, where a manager or scheduling system decides who works when and staff find out afterwards.

How it works

Bid-based rostering usually runs in four stages:

• Publish — the full period's work is laid out: dates, roles or locations, and the capacity (how many people) each needs.
• Bid — each person reviews what's on offer and requests the specific shifts they want, often within a minimum/maximum per period.
• Allocate — a manager reviews every bid against capacity and places people, typically by priority tier or a track record of reliability, then keeps a standby pool for the overflow.
• Confirm — allocated and standby staff are notified of the outcome, and the roster becomes final ahead of the shift.

Why it matters

Top-down assignment is fast to build but blind to preference — a manager can't easily see who actually wants which shift before publishing it. Bid-based rostering surfaces that information first, which tends to reduce no-shows and disputes over "why did I get this shift," since people are placed against demand they expressed themselves. It also makes uneven demand visible early: a manager can see which shifts are contested and which are thin before committing anyone.

The trade-off is more moving parts — someone still has to review bids and allocate fairly, and a standby pool has to be managed so nothing is left unfilled.

In Chronomancer

Chronomancer is built around bid-based rostering as its core engine: a 3-layer work hierarchy (configurable per venue) is published each period, staff bid via a signed link, and allocation runs against priority and a computed reliability score, with a ranked standby pool behind every position.