Many service systems display nonstationary demand: the number of customers fluctuates over time according to a stochastic—though to some extent predictable—pattern. To safeguard the performance of such systems, adequate personnel capacity planning (i.e., determining appropriate staffing levels and/or shift schedules) is often crucial. This paper provides a state-of-the-art literature review on staffing and scheduling approaches that account for nonstationary demand. Among references published during 1991–2013, it is possible to categorize relevant contributions according to system assumptions, performance evaluation characteristics, optimization approaches and real-life application contexts. Based on their findings, the authors develop recommendations for further research. •We provide a literature review on staffing and scheduling approaches for nonstationary demand.•We categorize articles according to system assumptions and performance metrics.•We categorize articles based on optimization approach and application context.•We develop recommendations to achieve a better integration of theory and practice.