Shift Marketplace for Security Guards

A guard calls in sick an hour before a night shift. You've got a client site that needs covering and a phone full of numbers to try one at a time, hoping someone picks up and isn't already working.

What most firms do today

A WhatsApp group message to everyone on the roster, or a round of phone calls down a list, in order, until someone says yes. It works, eventually, but it's slow, it's manual, and it depends on you remembering who was available last time and who wasn't.

There's no record of who was asked, who said no, or why a shift went uncovered until 20 minutes before it started.

How the TacDesk shift marketplace works

An open, unassigned shift can be posted to the marketplace by a manager. Once posted, it shows up for guards to browse in their app, and any guard can request it with one tap.

Requesting a shift. When a guard taps request, TacDesk checks the shift is still open and checks their own rota for a clashing shift on that date. If they're already booked over the same hours, the request is blocked before it reaches a manager. The system also won't let the same guard double-request the same shift.

Manager approval. The request lands with managers as a claim awaiting review, and managers get a notification that someone's asked for it. A manager approves or denies the claim. Approving one guard's claim for a shift automatically denies every other pending claim on that same shift, so two managers can't accidentally double-book it between them, and the guard who missed out is notified their request wasn't successful this time.

Weekly availability. Guards can set which days of the week and which hours they're generally free. The marketplace uses that against each open shift so a guard can see, at a glance, whether a shift falls inside the hours they've said work for them, rather than clicking into every listing to check.

Withdrawing a request. A guard can withdraw a pending request themselves if their plans change, before a manager has acted on it.

Turning it off. The marketplace switches on automatically as soon as it's included on your plan, but a manager can turn the site-wide toggle off if you don't want guards claiming shifts this way.

Why it matters

Cover gets found faster. Instead of you working a phone list in sequence, every eligible guard sees the shift at once and the first genuine request wins.

It replaces the group chat. No more scrolling a WhatsApp thread to work out who actually said yes, or double-booking a shift because two people replied "I'll do it" at the same time.

There's a record. Who requested a shift, when, and who approved or denied it sits in the system rather than in a chat history that gets deleted or scrolls out of view.

Where it sits

Shift Marketplace is included from TacStarter upward; it isn't part of TacFree. It works alongside the rota you're already running, so posting a shift to the marketplace is a step you take from a shift you've already built. See Rota & scheduling for how shifts get created in the first place, and Security guard scheduling software for the wider picture of how TacDesk handles rota and cover together.

Start free to try TacDesk's rota tools, or book a demo to see the shift marketplace on a paid plan.