How to roster part-time and casual employees together

Written by Roster Flow. Published 6 July 2026.

A mixed roster usually goes wrong in one of three ways. A part-time employee is put on a shift outside the times they agreed to work. A casual slowly takes over the regular hours a part-time employee was hired for. Or a part-time employee picks up an extra shift that turns out to be payable at overtime rates. Each one comes from treating the two types of employment as if they were the same.

The fix is to build the roster in a fixed order and check each group against its own rules. The general steps for any roster are in the complete guide to staff rostering. This article is about fitting the two groups together.

The difference that matters for the roster

A part-time employee has reasonably predictable hours and, under the awards checked here, an agreement in writing about them. The Restaurant Industry Award, for example, defines a part-time employee as someone engaged for at least 8 and fewer than 38 ordinary hours a week (clause 10.2), and requires the employer to agree in writing, at the start, on the hours guaranteed each week and the days and times the employee is available to work them (clause 10.4). The Fair Work Ombudsman’s page on part-time employees explains that part-time employees get the same minimum entitlements as full-time employees, on a pro rata basis.

A casual employee has no firm advance commitment to ongoing work and is paid a casual loading or a casual rate instead. There are no guaranteed hours to honour, which makes casuals the flexible part of the roster. That flexibility has limits of its own, covered in how to build a fair roster for casual employees.

So the part-time agreements are the fixed points of the week, and casual shifts are built around them. Before you start, have each part-time employee’s written agreement to hand, and each casual’s current availability.

Build the roster in three passes

1. Place full-time employeesPut in the people with the most hours first, on their agreed arrangement for working ordinary hours.
2. Place part-time guaranteed hoursRoster each part-time employee for their guaranteed hours, inside the availability or regular pattern in their written agreement. Do this before any casual is placed, so a casual never ends up on a shift a part-time employee is entitled to.
3. Fill the gaps with casualsLook at what is left: early opens, closes, peaks and the days part-time employees are not available. Offer those shifts to casuals whose availability fits, keeping every shift at or above the casual minimum engagement.
4. Check each group against its own rulesCheck part-time shifts for daily minimums, days off and breaks between shifts. Check casual shifts for minimum engagement and daily maximums. Then total the hours for each person.
5. Publish onceSend the whole roster to everyone at the same time, so a part-time employee is not finding out about their week after the casuals have already swapped shifts around.

The rules side by side

Rules differ between awards, so confirm which one covers your staff with the Fair Work Ombudsman’s Find my award tool. The table uses the Restaurant Industry Award 2020, which covers many cafes and restaurants, to show how differently the two groups are treated in one award.

Pay rates are on the Restaurant Award pay rates page. Before changing anyone’s regular roster, part-time or casual, check the consultation clause in your award as well.

Where other awards differ

The Hospitality Industry (General) Award and the Registered and Licensed Clubs Award follow a similar model to the Restaurant award: guaranteed hours and availability agreed in writing, and no rostering outside that availability (clause 10.4 and clause 10.7 in each). The General Retail and Fast Food awards work differently, with a regular pattern of work rather than a band of availability.

• General Retail Industry Award. The written agreement sets the hours on each day, the start and finish times, and when meal breaks may be taken (clause 10.5). A part-time employee’s regular pattern must not be changed from week to week or fortnight to fortnight (clause 10.10). The minimum daily engagement is 3 consecutive hours for part-time employees (clause 10.9) and 3 hours for casuals (clause 11.2). Clause 16.6 sets a minimum break of 12 hours between finishing work one day and starting the next, which the employer and employee can agree to make 10 hours.
• Fast Food Industry Award. The written agreement sets the daily hours, the days, the start and finish times and meal breaks (clause 10.3). Part-time employees are rostered for at least 3 consecutive hours a shift (clause 10.2), and casuals have a minimum engagement of 3 consecutive hours (clause 11.3).
• Hospitality Industry (General) Award. Part-time employees work at least 3 and no more than 11.5 ordinary hours a day (clause 15.2), and casuals are engaged for at least 2 consecutive hours (clause 11.3).
• Registered and Licensed Clubs Award. Part-time employees are rostered for no fewer than 3 and no more than 12 hours in a day (clause 10.7), and most casuals are paid for at least 2 hours each time they attend (clause 11.5).

Extra hours: part-time or casual first?

When a shift opens up, it is tempting to give it to the part-time employee who is already trained and nearby. Check two things first.

The first is how your award treats extra hours for part-time employees. Under the General Retail award, time worked beyond the guaranteed hours is paid at the overtime rate unless the pattern was varied by agreement recorded in writing, and for a single shift that record must be made before the end of the shift (clauses 10.6 and 10.8). The Fast Food award has a similar rule (clauses 10.5, 10.6 and 10.9). The Restaurant, Hospitality and Clubs awards require overtime rates for time worked beyond a part-time employee’s rostered hours (clause 10.13 in each). The overtime hours calculator helps you see how many hours fall past a limit.

The second is whether the extra hours are reasonable. Under the National Employment Standards, an employee other than a full-time employee can’t be asked to work more than the lesser of 38 hours and their agreed ordinary hours in a week unless the additional hours are reasonable, and can refuse additional hours that are not, as the Fair Work Ombudsman’s maximum weekly hours fact sheet sets out.

If a part-time employee keeps working well beyond their guaranteed hours, the award may let them ask for more. Under the Restaurant, Hospitality and Clubs awards, a part-time employee who has regularly worked more ordinary hours than their guaranteed hours for at least 12 months can request in writing an increase, and the employer can refuse only on reasonable business grounds, in writing (clauses 10.8 to 10.10). The General Retail award has its own process, with a written response due within 21 days (clause 10.11). A roster that relies on the same part-time employee doing extra shifts every week is a sign the guaranteed hours may no longer match the business.

A worked example: one week at a small cafe

A cafe covered by the Restaurant Industry Award opens from 7:00 to 14:30, seven days a week. It needs an opener and a closer every day, and a third person for the weekend peak. Every opening shift runs from 6:30 to 13:00 and every closing shift from 8:30 to 15:00, each with a 30 minute unpaid meal break, so each is 6 paid hours. The weekend peak shift runs from 10:00 to 14:00 with no meal break, so 4 paid hours. The week needs 42 opening hours, 42 closing hours and 8 peak hours: 92 paid hours in all.

The cafe has two part-time employees. Jess has 24 guaranteed hours with availability from 6:00 to 13:00, Monday to Thursday. Leo has 18 guaranteed hours with availability from 8:00 to 16:00, Friday to Sunday. The owner places them first, then offers what is left to three casuals.

Jess’s four opens are 4 times 6, which is her 24 guaranteed hours, and every one sits inside her 6:00 to 13:00 availability. Leo’s three closes are 3 times 6, his 18 guaranteed hours, inside his 8:00 to 16:00 availability. That leaves 50 hours for the casuals: Ava’s 24, Ben’s 18 and Chloe’s 8, which with the part-time employees’ 42 makes the 92 the week needs.

Now the checks. Every part-time day is 6 paid hours, between the 3 and 11.5 hours clause 10.7 allows. Jess has three days off and Leo four, above the 2 days a week in clause 10.7. Jess finishes at 13:00 and starts at 6:30 the next day, a break of 17.5 hours, and Leo finishes at 15:00 and starts at 8:30 the next day, also 17.5 hours, both above the 10 hours in clause 15.1. Every casual shift is at least 4 hours, above the 2 hour minimum engagement in clause 11.3.

If Jess asks for the Friday open as well, the owner checks her written availability first. It covers Monday to Thursday only, and clause 10.7 says a part-time employee must not be rostered outside their availability, so the Friday open stays with Ben. Had the extra shift fallen inside her availability, the next check would be how clause 10.13 treats the extra hours. The cafe roster template lays out a week like this one.

When availability changes

Availability changes for both groups, but not in the same way. A casual can usually update their availability for the weeks ahead, and you roster around it. For a part-time employee, the written agreement is what counts. Under the Restaurant, Hospitality and Clubs awards, a part-time employee whose personal circumstances change in a genuine and ongoing way can alter their availability by giving 14 days’ written notice (clause 10.11). If the employer cannot reasonably accommodate it, the guaranteed hours cease to apply and new ones must be agreed (clause 10.12).

Keep the two kinds of change apart on your records: a casual’s weekly availability can live on a form, while a part-time change belongs with their written agreement. The staff availability template gives you a form to collect the week to week side.

Keep the paperwork straight

A mixed roster is only as good as the agreements behind it. Keep each part-time employee’s written agreement, and every variation, somewhere you can find in a minute. The General Retail award requires the employer to keep a copy of the agreement and any variation, and to give the employee a copy on request (clause 10.7), and the Fast Food award requires the employer to keep a copy and give one to the employee (clause 10.4). Both awards say a variation can be recorded in writing by text message or other electronic means, but that record still has to be kept.

Roster Flow keeps the week in one place: 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.

A checklist for a mixed roster

• Each part-time employee’s written agreement is at hand before you start
• Full-time, then part-time guaranteed hours are placed before any casual
• No part-time employee is rostered outside their availability or regular pattern
• Part-time days meet the award’s daily minimum and maximum, with days off
• Casual shifts are at or above the casual minimum engagement
• Breaks between days are checked for the employees your award covers
• Extra hours for part-time employees are checked for overtime before they are offered
• Changes to part-time agreements are recorded in writing and kept

Sources

• Fair Work Commission: Restaurant Industry Award 2020 [MA000119]
• Fair Work Commission: Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2020 [MA000009]
• Fair Work Commission: Registered and Licensed Clubs Award 2020 [MA000058]
• Fair Work Commission: General Retail Industry Award 2020 [MA000004]
• Fair Work Commission: Fast Food Industry Award 2020 [MA000003]
• Fair Work Ombudsman: part-time employees
• Fair Work Ombudsman: maximum weekly hours
• Fair Work Ombudsman: casual employees
• Fair Work Ombudsman: find my award

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