Rostering family members and owner-operators fairly

Written by Roster Flow. Published 28 August 2026.

An owner who opens every morning because nobody else has a key. A partner who does the books on Sunday and serves on Saturday. A teenager who helps out after school, and a cousin who covers the counter when someone is sick. Very little of that shows on most small business rosters, and all of it is work the business depends on.

Leaving owners and family off the roster causes three problems. Nobody can see who is really working, so the roster looks cheaper than the business is to run. The owner becomes the answer to every gap, and wears out. And staff start to wonder whether the family gets the easy shifts. This article covers the rostering, and points to where to check the pay, super and employment questions that come with it.

Put everyone who works on the roster

The roster should show everyone on each shift, whether or not they are on the payroll. It is the only way to see the real shape of the week.

• Owners go on the roster as shifts, marked as not on the payroll where that is the case, so staff know who is in charge and when.
• Family members go on it too, with start and finish times like everyone else, whatever their arrangement.
• Unrostered help gets noticed. If a relative regularly comes in on Saturdays without being on the roster, that is a sign to look at the arrangement, not just the roster.
• The owners’ hours are counted. Add up the hours the owners work each week alongside the wage bill. It shows how much of the week depends on them, and what it would take to step back.

Is a family member who helps out an employee?

This question comes first, and it is not a rostering decision. The Fair Work Ombudsman’s page on unpaid work explains that unpaid work is lawful if the person doing the work is not an employee, but that if there is an employment relationship, the person is an employee and must be paid.

Whether there is an employment relationship depends on the arrangement. The Fair Work Ombudsman’s page on the whole of relationship test, which constitutionally covered businesses use to work out whether a worker is a contractor or an employee, says the test considers the real substance, practical reality and true nature of the relationship, with factors including the amount of control over how work is performed. It also says working this out can be complicated. business.gov.au adds that you are responsible for classifying a worker correctly for tax and super purposes, and that it is not as simple as whether they have an ABN.

This article does not decide whether anyone in your business is an employee. If a family member works regularly in the business and you are unsure how the arrangement should be treated, contact the Fair Work Ombudsman or get advice before you build it into the roster.

Family members who are employees

Once a family member is an employee, give their place on the roster the same care as everyone else’s. The Fair Work Ombudsman describes the National Employment Standards as the minimum employment entitlements that have to be provided to all employees. For the roster, that means:

• Check the award as you would for anyone. If an award covers the job, its rules on minimum engagement, breaks, penalty rates and part-time agreements are the rules to roster by. The Fair Work Ombudsman’s Find my award tool confirms which award applies.
• The same paperwork. Employers must give every new employee the Fair Work Information Statement, and every new casual the Casual Employment Information Statement.
• Timesheets like everyone else. The Fair Work Ombudsman’s record-keeping page says employers have to keep time and wages records for 7 years, so record a family member’s hours the same way as anyone’s.
• Pay slips. The Fair Work Ombudsman says pay slips have to be given within 1 working day of pay day.

Super follows the same logic. The ATO’s page on working out if you have to pay super says that generally all employees are eligible for super guarantee, and that it does not matter if the employee is a family member working in your business. Employees under 18 are eligible if they work for you for more than 30 hours in a week.

For Single Touch Payroll, the ATO lists family members of a family business as an example of closely held payees. A small employer with 19 or fewer payees can report amounts paid to them on or before each payday, or choose to report quarterly. Ask your bookkeeper which option suits you, and keep the roster and timesheets either way.

Younger family members

Check the minimum working age before rostering a teenager, even in the family business. The Fair Work Ombudsman’s minimum working age page says the minimum age for working depends on the state or territory, and lists who to contact in each one. Ask that contact how its rules apply to a family business.

Owners: on the roster, not always on the payroll

How owners are paid depends on how the business is set up, and that is a question for your accountant rather than the roster. Two points from the ATO are worth knowing. Self-employed sole traders and partners do not have to pay super guarantee for themselves. And directors or shareholders of a company are also among the ATO’s examples of closely held payees, with directors’ fees reported through Single Touch Payroll.

Whatever the structure, the roster question is the same: how many hours can the owners work week after week, and what happens when they cannot? Safe Work Australia’s fatigue page describes fatigue as a state of physical, mental or emotional impairment that can prevent people from functioning safely. An owner who opens and closes six days a week is running the shift on whatever is left.

• Give owners days off on the roster, planned like anyone else’s, rather than hoping for a quiet day.
• Plan owner leave like staff leave, with the cover worked out in advance. Rostering when your only supervisor is away covers who runs the shift.
• Stop the owner being the default cover. Keep a list of trained staff to call for sick shifts, and offer open shifts before the owner steps in.
• Train someone else to open and close. A skills matrix shows who is nearly ready.

Keep it fair for the rest of the team

Staff notice quickly if family members always get the Saturday day shift and never close, or if the owner’s child can swap shifts without asking. Rules everyone can see prevent most of that.

• One set of rules. Family members request leave, swap shifts and give availability through the same process as everyone else.
• Share the hard shifts. Count Saturdays, Sundays and closes for everyone, family included, and rotate them. Fair weekend and closing-shift rotations shows how.
• Owners take their share, or say openly which shifts they are covering so staff do not have to.
• Separate approval where you can. Have someone other than a close relative check a family member’s timesheet and leave, such as the other owner or the bookkeeper, against the roster in the same way as everyone else’s.
• Offer extra hours openly. Post spare shifts to the whole team before offering them to family. Building a fair roster for casuals covers sharing hours.

A worked example: a family bakery’s week

A bakery shop is run by two owners, Dana and Lou, as a partnership. It trades from 7:00 to 14:00, Tuesday to Sunday, and its counter staff are covered by the General Retail Industry Award. Before the change, Dana and Lou each worked all six trading days, their adult child Tia helped on the counter whenever they were needed with no set hours, and the two casuals worked every Sunday from opening.

After taking advice, the owners engage Tia as a part-time employee, with a regular pattern of work agreed in writing under clause 10.5, and rebuild the week.

Tia works 6 hours on each shift, so each includes a 10 minute paid rest break and an unpaid meal break of 30 to 60 minutes (clause 16.2, Table 3), with the meal break 3 hours in. Max’s and Jess’s 5 hour shifts each include a 10 minute paid rest break and are above the 3 hour casual minimum in clause 11.2. Jess starts at 9:00 on Sunday because that is when the span of ordinary hours starts on a Sunday under clause 15.1. Hours an employee works outside the span, other than shiftwork, are paid as overtime (clause 21.2), so Lou opens on Sundays instead.

Each owner now has two days off together every week, and one owner is always there. The employees’ paid hours total 33 a week: 18 + 10 + 5. Like employees generally, Tia is eligible for super guarantee, while Dana and Lou, as partners, do not pay super guarantee for themselves. Tia’s hours go on a timesheet, and the bookkeeper checks Tia’s timesheet against the roster before each pay run, the same as Max’s and Jess’s.

Roster Flow keeps the week visible to everyone: 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 family and owner rosters

• Every owner and family member who works is on the roster, marked as on or off the payroll
• The arrangement for any family member who helps regularly has been checked
• Family employees have the paperwork, timesheets, pay slips and super any employee would
• Minimum working age is checked with your state or territory before a teenager works
• Owners have planned days off and planned leave cover
• Sick shifts go to a list of trained staff before the owner
• Weekends, closes and extra hours are shared by the same rules for everyone
• Someone other than a close relative checks family members’ timesheets where possible

Sources

• Fair Work Ombudsman: unpaid work
• Fair Work Ombudsman: whole of relationship test
• business.gov.au: guide to hiring employees
• Fair Work Ombudsman: National Employment Standards
• Fair Work Ombudsman: Fair Work Information Statement
• Fair Work Ombudsman: record-keeping
• Fair Work Ombudsman: pay slips
• Australian Taxation Office: work out if you have to pay super
• Australian Taxation Office: closely held payees
• Fair Work Ombudsman: minimum working age
• Safe Work Australia: fatigue
• Fair Work Commission: General Retail Industry Award 2020 [MA000004]
• Fair Work Ombudsman: find my award

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