Write a Shift Handoff Message in Slack or Teams

A handoff is the message you leave when you stop and someone else starts. In chat it goes wrong in two ways: it is buried under the next hour of messages, or it is a wall of text where the one urgent item is on line nine. This guide gives you a short template, a small set of status emoji, and the exact Slack and Teams steps for making the message easy to find.

Miles Crawford

6 min read

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The template

Write the handoff in the same order every time, so the reader learns where to look. This is our suggested layout, not a Slack or Microsoft format:

Status line. One emoji and one sentence: how the shift went overall.
Needs action first. What the next person must do soon, with a name or a deadline for each item.
Waiting on someone. What you asked for and from whom, so nobody asks twice.
Good to know. Context that is useful but not urgent.
How to reach me. Whether you are offline, and who to ask if something is unclear.

Keep it to what fits on one screen. If an item needs a long explanation, link to the ticket, document, or thread and leave a one-line summary in the handoff.

A four-emoji status key

Emoji help here because they let a reader scan. Use few of them, and put the key where people can see it. Our suggestion:

🟢 on the status line: steady, nothing needs you before you settle in.
🟡 on the status line: something is slipping, read the first section now.
🔴 on the status line: act first, then read the rest. Use it rarely, so it keeps its meaning.
👀 next to an item: someone has it in view but nobody has started. Ask the owner before you take it.

Colors alone are hard for some readers to tell apart, so always pair the emoji with a word on the same line, such as 🔴 Action needed. Our accessibility guide covers more on that. If your team wants these as its own custom images, the small reaction set guide explains how to keep a set short enough to learn.

Make it easy to find in Slack

Post the handoff as a new message in the channel the next shift reads, then keep questions out of the main view by using a thread. Slack describes threads as a way to discuss a message in more detail without adding clutter to a channel.

Post your handoff in the channel.
Ask people to reply in the thread under it. On desktop, hover over the message and click the Reply in thread icon.
If a reply matters to everyone, check the box below the reply to send it back to the channel's main view.

Slack also lets you schedule a message. In the message field, click the arrow icon next to the paper plane to send it later; on mobile, tap and hold the paper plane. Drafts, scheduled, and sent messages are listed under Drafts & sent in the sidebar. If the handoff is the same every day, a Slack workflow can post a scheduled message to a channel on a recurring schedule, which suits a standing prompt such as "post your handoff in this thread."

Make it easy to find in Teams

In a Teams chat, you can pin one message so it stays at the top for everyone in the chat. Microsoft notes a few limits that matter for handoffs:

Only one message can be pinned at a time, so pinning a new handoff replaces the old one.
Everyone in the chat can see the pinned message.
Anyone in the chat, except guests, can unpin it or replace it.
Only a single line of the pinned message shows at the top of the chat, so start with your status line.

To pin, hover over the message, open More options, and choose Pin for everyone. Microsoft's pin article describes chats, so check how your own channels behave before you rely on pinning there.

To send a handoff at a set time, compose the message, select Actions and apps, choose Schedule message, pick a date and time, select Continue, then select Send. Microsoft says you must already be in a conversation with the person before you can schedule a chat message, and you can edit, reschedule, or delete a scheduled message afterward.

Handoffs across time zones

If the next person starts while you are asleep, schedule the message so it arrives at the start of their day rather than during yours. Microsoft describes scheduling as a way to send at a date and time that respects collaboration across locations and working hours. Slack's scheduling works the same way for your own message. Either way, write the handoff so it still makes sense four hours after you sent it: use dates instead of "today" and "tomorrow".

What not to put in a chat handoff

Chat is quick, and that is also its limit. Before you adopt this for a workplace with rules about records or privacy, check those rules first.

Do not paste personal details about a customer, patient, or colleague into a channel unless your employer's policy says that channel is approved for it. Refer to a ticket or record number instead.
Do not make chat the only place a safety-critical instruction lives. If your workplace has a required log, form, or call, the chat message points to it and does not replace it.
Do not use emoji for the serious part. A 🟢 next to a hazard is worse than no emoji. Say what happened in words.
Do not assume the next person has read it. For the items that must not be missed, name the person who owns each one, and ask them to confirm with a reply.

We are not offering industry-specific compliance advice here. The template and the status key are communication habits, and the rules for what you may write belong to your employer.

Close the loop with reactions

Ask the receiver to add a ✅ reaction when they have read it, so you can see at a glance who has acknowledged it. For items that need more than a read receipt, a reply in the thread is better, because it leaves a written answer. Our guide to using Slack reactions to show follow-up goes further on that pattern, and best reaction emojis for work lists a few more that read clearly at small sizes.

Sources

Checked October 14, 2026. The Slack and Teams steps follow each product's own help articles. The template and the emoji key are our suggestions.