How to roster retail staff for sale days and stocktake

Written by Roster Flow. Published 16 August 2026.

Most weeks, a retail roster follows the usual pattern of trade. Two kinds of day do not fit it. A sale brings more customers in a few hours than a normal week spreads over several days, and a stocktake needs a team counting when the store is normally closed. Rostering either one from the standard week leaves you short on the floor or paying for hours you did not plan.

This article plans both, using the rules in the General Retail Industry Award 2020, which covers most shops. For the rest of the retail calendar, see rostering for late-night trading.

Why sale days and stocktakes need their own roster

A sale day and a stocktake go wrong in opposite ways. On a sale day the risk is the queue: too few people on the registers and in the fitting rooms at the peak, and breaks pushed back until someone has worked most of the day without one. On a stocktake the risk is the clock: a count that starts late, runs past the hours the award treats as ordinary, and turns a planned cost into overtime.

Both are also days you can see coming. Sale dates are set weeks ahead, and the stocktake date is usually fixed by the end of the financial year or by head office. That makes them some of the easiest shifts to roster well, as long as you start from the work rather than from last week’s names.

Forecast the sale from your own numbers

Before you place anyone, work out how busy the sale will be and when. Your own records are the best guide:

• Transactions by hour from your last comparable sale, taken from the point of sale reports
• Door counts, if you have a counter, to see how many people came in for each sale made
• The sale’s shape: a Saturday launch, a weekday online sale that sends people into the store, or a clearance that runs all week
• Deliveries of sale stock, and when it has to be ticketed and out on the floor

Mark the peak hours, then decide how many customers each role can look after in your store. There is no standard ratio, so use what worked or failed last time and write it down. The staff coverage calculator sets the people you need in each half hour against the shifts on your roster, and forecasting staffing from weekly sales covers the method in more detail.

The roles a sale day needs

On a normal day two people might do everything. A sale day runs better when each person has one main job for the peak, so nothing is left to whoever happens to be free.

Build the sale day roster in stages

1. Set the day’s hoursWrite down the trading hours, the time needed to set up before opening and to recover the floor after close, and the peak you forecast.
2. Place the people who open and closePut in the manager or supervisor who opens, the person who closes, and anyone setting out sale stock before the doors open.
3. Build up to the peakStagger the starts so the team grows as the crowd does, rather than bringing everyone in at opening.
4. Roster every breakWrite each meal and rest break into the roster with its time, one person at a time, before the peak or once it eases. The General Retail Award requires the timing and length of breaks to be included in the roster (clause 16.3).
5. Stagger the finishesSend casuals home in stages as the store quietens, keeping enough people for the close and for putting the floor back together.
6. Check the rules and the costCheck minimum shifts, breaks, the span of hours and days worked, then cost the day with weekend and evening hours counted separately.

A worked example: a sale Saturday in a clothing store

A clothing store trades from 9:00 to 17:00 on Saturdays. For its end of season sale it expects a peak from about 11:00 to 15:00, based on its last sale. The manager plans for three people to open, five or six on the floor through the peak, and two to close.

The paid hours come to 38.5, with rest breaks paid and meal breaks unpaid. Between 11:00 and 15:00 there are always five or six people working, and the three meal breaks are taken one at a time between 11:30 and 13:00. Every casual shift is at least 3 hours and the part-time shift is well above the 3 hour minimum (clauses 11.2 and 10.9). Nobody works more than 5 hours without a meal break, no break falls in anyone’s first or last hour, and the manager’s 9 hours is within the daily limit of 9 ordinary hours in clause 15.4.

Every shift sits inside the Saturday span of ordinary hours, 7:00 am to 6:00 pm, so none of it is overtime. It is all Saturday work, though, which clause 22.1 pays at 125% of the minimum hourly rate for full-time and part-time employees and 150% for casuals, including the casual loading. Run the weekend hours calculator before you compare the cost with the sales you expect.

Plan the stocktake before you roster it

A stocktake roster is only as good as the plan behind it. The count is quicker, and needs fewer paid hours, when the store is ready before the counters arrive. In the week before:

• Fix the date and the cut-off. Decide when receiving stops, which sales belong to the old period and when the count starts.
• Map the store into zones. Number every fixture, rack and stockroom bay, so each pair of counters has a clear area and nothing is counted twice.
• Tidy and put away. Use normal trading shifts to finish unpacking deliveries, clear the returns and fold the tables, so the count is not also a clean up.
• Check the equipment. Charge the scanners, test them against the stock file, and have count sheets ready in case one fails.
• Estimate the count time. Start from how long the last stocktake took, adjusted for how much stock you hold now.

Rostering the count

Most small shops count after closing or before opening, so the first question is where those hours fall. The General Retail Award sets a span of ordinary hours for each day (clause 15.1, Table 2): 7:00 am to 9:00 pm Monday to Friday, 7:00 am to 6:00 pm on Saturday and 9:00 am to 6:00 pm on Sunday. If your store trades past 9:00 pm on a weekday or past 6:00 pm on a weekend, the span runs until 11:00 pm on every day of the week (clause 15.2(c)).

For employees who are not engaged as shiftworkers, hours outside that span are overtime, whether they are full-time, part-time or casual (clause 21.2, Table 10). A count that starts at 6:00 am on a Saturday, or keeps going after 9:00 pm on a Tuesday in a store that closes at 5:30, pays overtime rates for those hours. Weekday hours after 6:00 pm that fall inside the span can be worked as ordinary hours, and those still carry a penalty rate under clause 22.1.

• Count in pairs. One person counts and one scans or writes. It is faster, and the second person catches miscounts.
• Remember the casual minimum. A casual must be engaged for at least 3 hours (clause 11.2), so a count planned for two hours still costs three for each casual. Plan useful work for the third hour, such as recounts and putting fixtures back.
• Protect the next morning. An employee must have at least 12 hours between finishing work on one day and starting the next (clause 16.6). Someone who counts until 9:00 pm should not start before 9:00 am the next day, or 7:00 am if you and they have agreed to a 10 hour break under clause 16.6(d). If they start without the break, clause 16.6(b) requires 200% of their minimum hourly rate until they have had 12 consecutive hours off.
• Pay for travel from another store. If people come from another of your stores, clause 19.5 requires you to pay for their travel time beyond their normal trip to work, at their ordinary rate or 150% of it on a Sunday or public holiday, and to reimburse any extra travel costs.
• Plan for a late finish. If a count means overtime of more than an hour past someone’s usual finish, without 24 hours’ notice, and they cannot reasonably get home for a meal in the break, clause 19.2 requires you to pay a meal allowance or supply a meal.

A worked example: a Tuesday night count

The same clothing store counts its stock on a Tuesday night at the end of June. It closes at 17:00 and never trades past 9:00 pm on weekdays, so its span of ordinary hours ends at 9:00 pm. The last stocktake took two pairs of counters about two and a half hours.

• 17:30 to 17:45. Briefing, zones handed out, scanners checked.
• 17:45 to 20:15. The count, one pair on the shop floor and one in the stockroom.
• 20:15 to 21:00. Recounts wherever the scanned count and the stock file disagree, then fixtures back and the store ready to open.

The count costs 14 casual hours, four people at 3.5 hours each, plus the manager’s last 3.5 hours. All of it is inside the span, so none of it is overtime on that count, as long as the one-off roster change rule below does not apply to anyone. Every hour after 6:00 pm, though, is paid at the weekday evening rate in clause 22.1: 125% of the minimum hourly rate for full-time and part-time employees and 150% for casuals. The casual shifts are under 4 hours, so the break table gives them no paid rest break. The manager works 8 paid hours with a 30 minute meal break, and a 21:00 finish means Wednesday’s start should be no earlier than 9:00 am unless a 10 hour break has been agreed.

Changing the roster for a one-off event

Sale days and stocktakes usually mean moving people’s normal shifts, and the award treats that differently for part-time employees and everyone else.

• Employees other than part-time employees. Clause 15.9(d) allows a roster to be changed by mutual agreement at any time before the employee arrives for work, where unexpected operational requirements call for it. A permanent change needs at least 7 days’ written notice, extended to 14 days in total if the employee disagrees (clause 15.9(e)).
• One-off changes. Where the roster of an employee other than a part-time employee is changed in a particular week for a one-off event that is not an emergency, and goes back to normal the following week, any extra time worked because of the change is paid at the overtime rate (clauses 15.9(g) and 15.9(h)). Check a stocktake week against this rule.
• Part-time employees. A part-time employee works a regular pattern agreed in writing, including guaranteed hours (clause 10.5). Extra hours can be agreed and recorded in writing, a text message will do, before the end of the affected shift, and are then paid at ordinary rates, including any penalty rates (clause 10.6). Time worked beyond the guaranteed hours without that agreement is paid at overtime rates (clause 10.8). Other parts of the pattern can be changed with 7 days’ written notice, or 48 hours in an emergency (clause 10.10).
• Days in a row. Nobody can work more than 6 consecutive days (clause 15.7(e)), and ordinary hours are limited to 5 days a week, or 6 days in one week of a two-week cycle with no more than 4 in the other (clauses 15.7(b) and 15.7(c)). A sale week followed by a stocktake can reach both limits.

If you are changing someone’s regular roster rather than a single week, clause 35 also requires you to consult them: explain the change and when it starts, invite their views, including on family and caring responsibilities, and consider what they say. Whatever the change, tell everyone in a way nobody misses, and keep the roster available to every employee on a noticeboard or through accessible electronic means, as clause 15.9(a) requires.

The General Retail Award rules in one table

The rules below are from the General Retail Industry Award 2020 as consolidated to 1 July 2026. Community pharmacies, hair and beauty businesses, stand-alone butchers and nurseries, and fast food outlets are among the businesses covered by other awards, so confirm yours with the Fair Work Ombudsman’s Find my award tool. An enterprise agreement, if your business has one, may set different terms. Pay rates are on the General Retail Award pay rates page.

After the event: compare the hours with the roster

Sale days and counts rarely finish exactly on time. Record actual start and finish times and breaks, compare them with the roster before payroll, and approve the differences while people still remember why the count ran late or a casual stayed on. A shift that ran past the span, a break that never happened or a short turnaround to the next shift all change the pay. Preventing accidental overtime covers the checks to build in next time.

Keep each sale day and stocktake roster with a note of how busy the day was and how long the count took. Next year’s roster starts from those numbers, and the award requires you to keep completed rosters for at least 12 months anyway (clause 15.9(c)).

Roster Flow handles the parts that repeat every sale and every count: 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. See how it works for retail.

A checklist for sale days and stocktakes

• The sale roster starts from last sale’s transactions by hour, not last week’s names
• Each person has one main job for the peak
• Starts and finishes are staggered, with breaks written in and taken one at a time
• Casual shifts are at least 3 hours and part-time shifts at least 3 consecutive hours
• The count is planned inside the span of ordinary hours, or the overtime is budgeted
• There are 12 hours between a late count and the next start, unless 10 has been agreed
• Extra part-time hours are agreed in writing before the shift ends
• Weekend and evening hours are costed separately

Sources

• Fair Work Commission: General Retail Industry Award 2020 [MA000004]
• Fair Work Ombudsman: find my award

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