Christmas trading roster checklist for small businesses

December asks more of a roster than any other month: longer hours, public holidays close together, leave requests and new casuals all at once. This checklist works through it in the order it needs doing, with the public holiday and award rules that shape each step.

Written by Roster Flow. Published 12 October 2026.

Trade runs later and busier, public holidays land in the middle of the week or on a weekend, half the team wants time off and the other half wants extra shifts. Most of the roster problems that show up on Christmas Eve could have been solved in November.

The award rules below are from the General Retail Industry Award 2020 and the Restaurant Industry Award 2020, as consolidated to 1 July 2026, and the public holiday rules are from the Fair Work Ombudsman. Other awards differ, so confirm yours with the Find my award tool.

A sunlit cafe counter with a Christmas tree beside it and a wreath hung by the window — Photo: Pexels

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Six weeks out: confirm the dates and trading hours

Start with a calendar running from early December to the middle of January, and mark these on it before anyone is rostered.

This year’s public holidays. They differ between states and territories and from year to year. When Christmas Day or Boxing Day falls on a weekend, some states add a public holiday on a weekday and others move the holiday, and some also have a part-day public holiday on the evening of Christmas Eve. Check the public holidays page and your state or territory government’s list rather than relying on last year’s roster.
Where each employee is based. The Fair Work Ombudsman explains that an employee is entitled to the public holidays where they are based for work, not where they happen to be working that day. That matters if anyone works across a state border.
Trading hours for every day. Late nights, early openings, the Christmas Eve close, the days you shut and any shutdown period. Every roster decision follows from these.
Deliveries and events. Supplier cut-off dates, the last delivery before Christmas, functions and local events that change the trade.

Then estimate the trade for each day, from last December’s sales if you have them, adjusted for how the days fall this year. A Christmas Eve on a Thursday trades differently from one on a Sunday.

Five weeks out: collect leave requests and availability

Ask everyone for their December and January leave requests and availability by a fixed date, and say when you will answer. People book travel and family events early, and a request answered in November is far easier to honour than one answered the week before.

Set a cut-off date and answer all the requests together, so nobody is approved just for asking first.
Decide how the popular days are shared. Many businesses rotate Christmas and New Year between years and keep a note of who worked which days last time.
Ask casuals and students when they are away, including travel, exams and other jobs, rather than assuming they are free all summer.
Put approved leave on the roster straight away, so nobody can be rostered over it.

Managing annual leave when building a roster covers how to decide between competing requests.

If you close over Christmas: shutdown notice and annual leave

Some businesses close between Christmas and the new year and want staff to take annual leave for that time. Awards set rules for this, and the notice period is the reason to plan it now. Under the General Retail Industry Award (clause 28.4):

The employer must give affected employees 28 days’ written notice of the shutdown period, or a shorter period agreed with the majority of the relevant employees.
A direction to take paid annual leave during the shutdown must be in writing and must be reasonable, and it applies to annual leave the employee has already accrued.
For any part of the shutdown not covered by a direction, the employer and employee can agree in writing to leave without pay.
Anyone engaged after the notice goes out, and affected by the shutdown, must be given written notice as soon as reasonably practicable.

Count 28 days back from the first day of the shutdown to find the last day the notice can go out under the Retail award. Other awards have their own shutdown clauses, with different conditions, so read the annual leave clause in yours before sending anything.

Asking staff to work on a public holiday

Employees have a right to be absent from work on a public holiday. As the Fair Work Ombudsman’s page on not working on public holidays explains, an employer can request an employee to work on a public holiday, but the request has to be reasonable. An employee can refuse if the request is unreasonable or they have reasonable grounds, and an employer can require the work only when the request was reasonable and the refusal was not.

The things that decide whether a request is reasonable include the nature of the workplace, the employee’s role, their personal circumstances such as caring responsibilities, whether they are full-time, part-time or casual, whether they could expect to be asked, the pay the work attracts and how much notice they were given. In practice:

Ask rather than assume. Put public holiday shifts to people as a request, not as a finished roster.
Ask early. A request made weeks ahead is easier to accept, and more likely to be reasonable, than one made on Christmas Eve.
Explain the pay the shift attracts under your award.
Start with volunteers, then spread the remaining shifts fairly and write down who worked which days for next year.

Who is paid for a public holiday they do not work

Under the National Employment Standards, employees other than casuals who would normally work on the day a public holiday falls are paid their base pay rate for the ordinary hours they would have worked. Base pay does not include penalty rates, loadings, allowances, overtime or bonuses. An employee who does not normally work on that day is not paid for it, and the Fair Work Ombudsman notes that a roster cannot be changed to deliberately avoid the payment.

Two things follow for the December budget. If you close on a public holiday, the full-time and part-time staff who normally work that day are still paid for it, so include those hours. And if a public holiday falls during paid annual leave or sick leave, the employee is paid for the public holiday and, under the National Employment Standards, it is not taken off their leave balance.

Cost the public holiday hours separately

Public holiday hours are the most expensive on the roster, and each award sets its own rates. For ordinary hours worked on a public holiday:

Public holiday penalty rates for ordinary hours, as a percentage of the minimum hourly rate
Award	Full-time and part-time	Casual, including the casual loading
General Retail Industry Award 2020 (Table 12, clause 22.1)	225%	250%
Restaurant Industry Award 2020 (Table 8, clause 24.2)	225%	250%

In hours, a 6 hour public holiday shift costs the same as 13.5 hours at the minimum hourly rate for a full-time or part-time employee (6 × 225%) and 15 hours for a casual (6 × 250%). The Retail award also allows an employer and a full-time or part-time employee to agree that public holiday hours are paid at the minimum hourly rate, with the same amount of paid time added to annual leave or taken off within 28 days, and any time not taken in that period paid out (clause 22.2).

Current rates are on the General Retail Industry Award pay rates and Restaurant Industry Award pay rates pages. The weekend and public holiday hours calculator separates those hours from the rest of the week, and the public holidays page lists the dates for each state.

A shopping street at night with strings of lights and a lit star hung between the buildings — Photo: Pexels

Bring in extra casuals early

Extra casuals for December are easier to find, and cheaper to train, in November. A new starter rostered for the first time on the busiest Saturday of the year slows down everyone around them.

Roster first shifts in quieter periods, with someone experienced alongside. Training new starters on a budget shows how to plan it.
Keep every shift at or above the minimum engagement. Under the General Retail Industry Award a casual’s minimum daily engagement is 3 hours in most cases (clause 11.2), and under the Restaurant Industry Award it is 2 consecutive hours (clause 11.3).
Collect availability for the whole period, including the days between Christmas and New Year.
Say how long the extra work is likely to last, so nobody is surprised when the January roster is shorter.

Publish early, then keep every change on the roster

Publish the Christmas roster as far ahead as you can, so staff can plan around it and gaps show up while there is still time to fill them. Changes will still happen, and the award rules for them do not pause for Christmas.

Under the Restaurant Industry Award, a full-time or part-time employee’s roster can change by mutual agreement or with 7 days’ notice (clause 15.3(d)). Under the General Retail Industry Award, a part-time employee’s regular pattern of work, other than their guaranteed hours, can change with 7 days’ written notice, or 48 hours in an emergency (clause 10.10), and other employees need at least 7 days’ written notice of a permanent change (clause 15.9(e)). Make every change on the roster itself and tell the people affected. Communicating roster changes covers how.

Build the first week of January before you break

Trade in many businesses drops after New Year while leave is still being taken, so January needs planning as much as December does. Before the Christmas break, note who returns when, which casuals are staying on and when part-time employees go back to their usual pattern, then build the first week of January so everyone knows their shifts before they go on leave.

Roster Flow helps with the parts of December that move fastest: availability and leave from staff phones, the roster published to everybody at once, clock ins that become timesheets, and approved hours sent to Xero, MYOB or a CSV file.

The Christmas roster checklist

This year’s public holidays checked for every state or territory where staff are based, including additional and part-day holidays
Trading hours set for every day from early December to mid January
Leave requests and availability collected by a cut-off date and answered together
Shutdown notice given in writing and in time, if you close
Public holiday shifts requested early, with notice and the pay explained
Staff who normally work a public holiday you close on included in the wage budget
Public holiday hours costed at their own rates
New casuals trained before the busiest days, with every shift at or above the minimum engagement
The roster published early, with changes made on the roster and within the award’s notice rules
The first week of January built before the Christmas break

Questions

Can I make staff work on Christmas Day?

You can ask, and the request must be reasonable. An employee can refuse if the request is unreasonable or they have reasonable grounds, and you can require the work only when a reasonable request was unreasonably refused.

Are part-time staff paid for Christmas Day if we are closed?

If they would normally work on that day, yes: under the National Employment Standards they are paid their base pay rate for the ordinary hours they would have worked. If they do not normally work that day, they are not paid for it.

Are casual employees paid for public holidays they do not work?

No. The National Employment Standards payment for a public holiday not worked applies to employees other than casuals. A casual who works a public holiday under the Retail or Restaurant award is paid 250% of the minimum hourly rate, including the casual loading.

Can I make staff take annual leave during a Christmas shutdown?

Under the General Retail Industry Award, yes, with 28 days’ written notice of the shutdown and a written, reasonable direction to take accrued leave (clause 28.4). Other awards have their own shutdown rules.

Which days are public holidays at Christmas in my state?

It depends on the state or territory and the year, particularly when Christmas Day or Boxing Day falls on a weekend. Check the public holidays page and your state or territory government’s list for this year.

What does a public holiday shift cost under the Retail award?

Ordinary hours on a public holiday are paid at 225% of the minimum hourly rate for full-time and part-time employees and 250% for casuals, under Table 12 in clause 22.1.

Sources

Sale days and stocktakeRetail peaks and the count afterwards.Public holidays by stateCheck this year’s dates where your staff are based.Public holiday calendarAny state and year, with roster notes.Annual leave and rostersDecide between competing leave requests.

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