Roster publishing checklist: what to check before you publish

Written by Roster Flow. Published 6 August 2026.

Before a roster is published, moving a shift means changing a cell. After it is published, the same fix means messages, swaps, a notice period for some staff and, if the mistake slips through, a pay run that costs more than planned. The few minutes between building the week and sending it are the cheapest minutes in rostering, and this checklist is how to use them.

It assumes the week is already built. How far ahead to send it is covered in how far in advance to publish a roster, and getting people to read it once it is out is covered in getting staff to confirm their shifts.

Check in passes, not person by person

The natural way to check a roster is to read it one name at a time. It is also how things get missed, because a gap at 15:00 on Thursday does not belong to anybody. Read the week several times instead, each time with one question in mind. On a small team’s roster each pass is quick, and a second person reading with fresh eyes sees what the person who built it reads straight past.

• Cover. Does every hour have the right number of people with the right skills?
• People. Is everyone available, not on leave and in only one place at a time?
• Rules. Does every shift meet the award or agreement?
• Hours and breaks. Are weekly totals, days off and breaks where they should be?
• Cost. Does the week fit the wage budget?
• Clarity. Can each person read their own shift without asking?

Pass 1: cover for every hour of trade

Start with the trading hours, not the names. For each day, look at who is on at opening, through the busiest hours and at close, and compare it with what the day is expected to bring: bookings, sales by the hour, deliveries and events.

• Someone who can open is on before the doors open, with time to set up, and someone who can close stays until the close is done, not just until the doors shut
• The peak has enough people, and the quiet hours either side are not carrying the peak’s numbers
• Every role that has to be filled is filled: someone on the coffee machine, someone on the pans, a supervisor or keyholder on every shift
• Any role your liquor licence or food safety arrangements require on site is covered for every hour it is needed, as your state regulator sets out
• Nobody is left alone on a shift you would not want them to work alone

If the numbers for each hour are guesswork, the staff coverage calculator turns expected customers by the hour into the number of people on shift.

Pass 2: availability, leave and double bookings

Next, check the roster against what people have told you. Many of the errors that reach staff live here: a shift given to someone who said weeks ago they cannot work Tuesdays, or a name on the roster in the middle of approved leave.

• Approved leave for the week is blocked out, including leave approved after you started building
• Availability changes are applied, especially for students around exams and staff with second jobs
• Part-time employees are rostered inside the availability agreed with them. Under the Restaurant Industry Award 2020 and the Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2020, a part-time employee must not be rostered to work any hours outside their agreed availability (clause 10.7 of each)
• Nobody is rostered twice at the same time, including across two venues or two departments
• Employees under 18 are not rostered for longer shifts than their award allows. Under the Restaurant Industry Award, an employee under 18 must not be required to work more than 10 hours in a shift (clause 13.3)

Double bookings are easy to miss when one person works in more than one place. How to prevent double-booking employees sets out a check that finds them.

Pass 3: the award rules for each shift

Every shift has to meet the award or enterprise agreement that covers the employee, and the rules differ between awards. The Fair Work Ombudsman’s Find my award tool confirms which award applies. The table sets out the rules worth checking before you publish, from three common awards as consolidated to 1 July 2026. An enterprise agreement, if you have one, may set different terms.

Takeaway food outlets are often covered by the Fast Food Industry Award 2020 instead. Under it, the minimum daily engagement for a casual is 3 consecutive hours (clause 11.3), and a part-time employee must be rostered for at least 3 consecutive hours on any shift (clause 10.2). Under the Restaurant and Hospitality awards, a casual must be engaged and paid for at least 2 consecutive hours each time, so rostering a shorter shift than the minimum engagement saves nothing.

Pass 4: weekly hours and days off

Total each person’s hours for the week and compare them with what they are employed for. A roster built one day at a time often adds up to more than anybody intended, and the extra hours tend to be found on the timesheet rather than before.

• Full-time employees. The Fair Work Ombudsman explains that an employee can work a maximum of 38 hours a week unless the employer asks them to work reasonable extra hours. Some awards, including the Restaurant and Fast Food awards, average a full-time employee’s 38 ordinary hours over a period of up to 4 weeks, so check how yours counts.
• Part-time employees. Hours above the agreed hours can cost more. Under the General Retail Industry Award, time worked beyond a part-time employee’s guaranteed hours is paid at the overtime rate unless the pattern was varied by an agreement recorded in writing (clauses 10.6 and 10.8). The Fast Food Industry Award has a similar rule (clauses 10.6 and 10.9).
• Casuals. Some awards cap a casual’s hours and pay overtime beyond the cap, such as clauses 11.2 and 11.4 of the Hospitality Industry (General) Award.
• Days off. Under the Restaurant Industry Award, an employee must have at least 8 full days off in a 4 week period (clause 15.1(f)), and a part-time employee must have 2 days off each week (clause 10.7(c)). Under the General Retail Industry Award, the most consecutive days anyone may work is 6 (clause 15.7(e)).

The overtime hours calculator splits a week into ordinary and overtime hours once you know where your award draws the line, and the glossary entry on overtime explains the terms.

Pass 5: breaks on the roster

Breaks left to the day are the breaks that get skipped when it is busy. Put meal breaks on the roster at times that suit the trade, usually before or after the peak, and check that every shift long enough to need one has one.

• Under the Fast Food Industry Award, the timing and length of a part-time employee’s rest and meal breaks must be included in the roster (clause 14.2)
• Under the Restaurant and Hospitality awards, an employer who rosters breaks must make all reasonable efforts to spread them evenly across the shift (clause 16.3 of each)
• Break lengths and when they must be taken differ between awards, so take them from your own award’s breaks clause rather than from habit

Unpaid breaks also change the paid hours, which matters for the next pass. The break calculator takes them off, and recording unpaid breaks on timesheets covers what happens after the shift.

Pass 6: cost against the wage budget

With the hours right, check the cost. Total the rostered hours for each day and estimate the wages, with Saturday, Sunday, public holiday and evening hours counted separately, because most awards pay them at different rates. Then compare the week with the budget you set for it.

• The total is inside the week’s wage budget, or you know exactly why it is not
• Quiet days are not carrying the numbers of busy days
• Any public holiday in the week is marked and costed at its own rates
• Casual hours include the casual loading in the estimate

The roster cost calculator estimates the week before it goes out, and building a roster around a weekly wage budget covers setting the budget in the first place. Rates for each award are on its pay rates page, such as the General Retail Industry Award pay rates.

A worked example: checking a gift shop’s week

A gift shop covered by the General Retail Industry Award trades 9:00 to 17:30 Monday to Saturday, with late trading to 21:00 on Friday. The owner has built next week’s roster and runs the passes. Three shifts fail.

Each of the three is easy to miss when the roster is read one name at a time, and each is harder to fix once staff have seen it. Sam may have planned the afternoon around a 2 hour shift, Priya may have said yes to something else, and unless Jordan had agreed to a 10 hour break under clause 16.6(d), the early start would be paid at 200% of the minimum hourly rate until Jordan had a 12 hour break (clause 16.6(b)).

Pass 7: can everyone read their own shift?

The last pass is from the reader’s side. A roster can be correct and still be misread, and a misread shift ends in the same empty spot on the floor as a wrong one.

• The week is labelled with its dates, not just "next week"
• Every shift has a start and a finish, written in one time format throughout
• A shift that runs past midnight sits on the day it starts
• Where there is more than one venue or department, each shift says which one
• Roles or stations are shown where they matter, such as bar, kitchen or register
• Unfilled shifts are marked as open shifts, not left as blank rows
• Breaks are shown on the shifts that have them
• The roster shows the date it was published, so an old copy is obvious

Publish once, to everyone, and say what changed

When the checks pass, send the roster to the whole team at the same time and in the same place, rather than person by person. Say what is different from last week, such as a new starter, a changed opening time or a public holiday, so nobody has to compare two versions. Keep a copy of what you published: the General Retail Industry Award requires each completed roster to be kept for at least 12 months (clause 15.9(c)), and a copy settles questions under any award. Group chats vs rostering apps covers why a roster sent into a message thread is hard to keep current.

Changes after publishing are where the rules bite. Under the Restaurant and Hospitality awards, a full-time or part-time employee’s roster can change by agreement or with 7 days’ notice. When you want to change someone’s regular roster or ordinary hours, the Fair Work Ombudsman says you must discuss it with them first: explain the change, invite their views about its impact and consider those views. In the awards above, that is clause 33 of the Restaurant Industry Award, clause 39 of the Hospitality Industry (General) Award and clause 35 of the General Retail Industry Award, which apply to everyone except employees whose hours are irregular, sporadic or unpredictable. Communicating roster changes covers getting a change to everyone it affects.

Roster Flow takes care of the sending: 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 checklist

• Opening, the peak and the close each have enough people with the right skills
• Every shift has a supervisor or keyholder, and any role your licence requires
• Approved leave and changed availability are applied
• Part-time employees are inside their agreed availability or pattern of work
• Nobody is booked in two places at once
• Casual and part-time shifts meet the award’s minimum engagement
• The break between shifts meets the award for everyone it applies to
• Weekly hours match what each person is employed for, and extra hours are agreed
• Days off and consecutive days worked meet the award
• Meal breaks are rostered on every shift that needs one
• The week’s cost is inside the wage budget, with weekends and public holidays costed separately
• Dates, times, venues and roles are clear, and open shifts are marked
• The roster goes to everyone at once, with what changed and the date it was published

Sources

• Fair Work Commission: Restaurant Industry Award 2020 [MA000119]
• Fair Work Commission: Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2020 [MA000009]
• Fair Work Commission: General Retail Industry Award 2020 [MA000004]
• Fair Work Commission: Fast Food Industry Award 2020 [MA000003]
• Fair Work Ombudsman: rosters
• Fair Work Ombudsman: hours of work
• Fair Work Ombudsman: find my award

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