How to stop employees missing their scheduled shifts

Written by Roster Flow. Published 17 July 2026.

When someone does not arrive for a shift, the usual response is a stern message to the whole team. It rarely helps: the people reading it already turn up, and the person who missed the shift may not have known they were on. A better approach looks at why shifts are being missed, fixes what the business controls, and deals with anything left one person at a time, with a fair process. The glossary entries for a no-show and a late start define the terms.

Find out why shifts are being missed

Before changing anything, go back over the last two or three months of rosters and timesheets. Note every missed shift and what the person said about it, then sort them by cause.

Make the roster impossible to miss

Everyone needs to see the same roster, in the same place, early enough to plan around it. Awards set the minimum. Under the Restaurant and Hospitality awards, the roster must show each full-time and part-time employee’s name and start and finish times, and be posted in a conspicuous place that is easily accessible by employees (Restaurant clause 15.3(b) and (c), Hospitality clause 15.5(b) and (c)). The General Retail award allows a notice board at or near the workplace or accessible electronic means, and the roster must show each employee’s weekly ordinary hours, their days of work and their start and finish times (clause 15.9(a) and (b)). These rules are from the awards as consolidated to 1 July 2026; check yours with the Fair Work Ombudsman’s Find my award tool.

• Publish at the same time each week. A fixed day and time teaches people when to look. How far in advance to publish a roster covers the timing.
• Keep one version. Old screenshots and printouts are how people end up working from last week, so put the publish date on every roster.
• Send it to each person. A copy on the wall and a copy on every phone, rather than one or the other.
• Show people their own shifts. A list of "your shifts this week" is harder to misread than a grid of twenty names.

Treat every change as a new agreement

A common trap is a shift changed after the roster went out. Under the Restaurant and Hospitality awards, a full-time or part-time employee’s roster can be changed by mutual agreement, or by the employer with 7 days’ notice (Restaurant clause 15.3(d), Hospitality clause 15.5(d)). A shift moved on Tuesday for Thursday therefore needs the employee’s agreement, and a message they never read is not agreement.

Make every change on the roster itself, ask the person to confirm it, and do not treat it as settled until they have. For casuals, treat each shift as an offer they have accepted: if you add or move one, ask them to confirm rather than assuming. Swaps between employees need the same care, and handling shift swap requests sets out the checks.

Ask people to confirm their week

A confirmation turns a roster someone might have seen into one they have looked at. Ask each person to confirm their shifts by a set time after the roster is published, and follow up with anyone who has not. A missing confirmation two days before a shift is a problem you can still fix. A missing person at opening is not.

Reminders help too, such as a message the afternoon before an early start. Send them during working hours where you can. Employees have a right to refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact outside their working hours unless the refusal is unreasonable, and for small business employers, those with fewer than 15 employees, that right has applied since 26 August 2025.

Roster in a way people can keep to

• Roster from current availability. A shift on a day someone told you they cannot work is a missed shift waiting to happen. The availability and leave guide covers collecting it and keeping it current.
• Watch the turnaround. A late close followed by an early open is hard to get up for. Under the Restaurant and Hospitality awards, full-time and part-time employees must have at least 10 hours between finishing ordinary hours one day and starting the next, or 8 hours at a changeover of rosters (Restaurant clause 15.1(e), Hospitality clause 15.5(e)).
• Keep patterns steady. The same shifts on the same days most weeks are easier to remember than a pattern that moves every week.
• Share the hard shifts. If the same people always get the Sunday open, a missed Sunday is not a surprise.
• Give clashes somewhere to go. A proper way to ask for a swap or report an unavailable date gives people an option other than not turning up.

Make calling in easy, and expected

People who are sick or have an emergency will sometimes miss a shift. What turns that into a no-show is not telling anyone. An employee taking sick or carer’s leave has to give notice as soon as possible, which can be after the leave has started, and say how long they expect to be away. Set one way of doing that, such as a call to the manager on duty, and put the number on the roster. What to do when an employee calls in sick covers the rest of that morning.

A worked example: six missed shifts in a month

A cafe covered by the Restaurant Industry Award has six missed shifts in four weeks. Instead of messaging the team, the manager looks at each one.

Five of the six had a cause the business could fix, and none of those needed a warning. The sixth is a pattern with one person, so it is handled with that person, through the steps below. The casual on the Sunday open had a 7 hour gap: the award’s 10 hour break in clause 15.1(e) applies to employees other than casuals, but the change still made sense.

When someone does not turn up

1. Check the roster firstConfirm the shift was on the published roster, whether it changed after publishing, and whether the person confirmed any change.
2. Contact themCall to check they are safe and find out what happened. Start from concern, not accusation.
3. Cover the shiftFill the gap from people already rostered, then eligible casuals, then part-time employees who want more hours. Filling open shifts sets out the checks.
4. Record itNote the date, the shift, whether they made contact and the reason given, and make sure the timesheet shows the shift as not worked.
5. Talk when they are backHave a short private conversation about what happened and what will stop it happening again.

Pay after a missed shift

Time away from work without the employer’s approval is an unauthorised absence, which the Fair Work Ombudsman also calls unauthorised unpaid leave, and it does not count as service. If it turns out the employee was sick or caring for someone and gave notice as soon as they could, handle it as sick or carer’s leave instead, with the evidence rules that apply to that leave.

What you cannot do is fine someone out of their pay. An employer can deduct money from pay only if the employee agrees in writing and it is mainly for the employee’s benefit, if a law, court order or Fair Work Commission order allows it, if the award allows it, or if a registered agreement allows it and the employee agrees. Taking money out of pay as a penalty for a missed shift, without one of those grounds, is not allowed.

When missed shifts keep happening

If one person keeps missing shifts after the causes above are fixed, treat it as a performance issue and deal with it early. The Fair Work Ombudsman’s guide to managing underperformance says to address issues straight away. For an employee who is regularly absent without cause, it suggests identifying the cause, looking at changes to the job, the working arrangements or the management of health issues, and re-establishing expectations of attendance.

• Meet privately, with notice. Tell them beforehand what the meeting is about and that they can bring a support person. Go through the specific shifts, let them respond and listen to the reason.
• Agree a plan. Record what will change, from both sides, in a performance improvement plan with a date to review it.
• Follow up. Meet again at the agreed time and note whether attendance has improved.
• Warn clearly if it continues. A formal written warning should set out what needs to change and that their job may be at risk if it does not.

If missed shifts are linked to illness, injury or caring responsibilities, find that out before treating them as conduct: taking leave the law provides is a workplace right, and adverse action against an employee because they use a workplace right is unlawful.

Dismissal is a serious step. You need a valid reason relating to the employee’s capacity or conduct and a fair process, including written reasons and a reasonable opportunity to respond before you decide. Employers with fewer than 15 employees have their own rules: an employee cannot make an unfair dismissal claim until they have been employed for at least 12 months, and the Fair Work Commission will find a dismissal fair if the employer can show it followed the Small Business Fair Dismissal Code. Keep the notes from every meeting, the plan and any warnings. Before any step beyond a first warning, get advice, for example from the Fair Work Infoline on 13 13 94.

Roster Flow covers the parts of this that depend on the roster: 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 fewer missed shifts

• The roster is published at the same time each week, with the date on it, to everyone
• Every change is made on the roster and confirmed by the person affected
• People confirm their week, and anyone who has not is followed up
• Shifts are built from current availability, with enough time between a close and the next open
• There is one way to report a sick call, and the number is on the roster
• Each missed shift is recorded with its cause, and the causes are reviewed monthly
• Repeated misses by one person go through a private, documented and fair process

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 Ombudsman: find my award
• Fair Work Ombudsman: right to disconnect
• Fair Work Ombudsman: notice and medical certificates
• Fair Work Ombudsman: unpaid leave
• Fair Work Ombudsman: deducting pay
• Fair Work Ombudsman: protections at work
• Fair Work Ombudsman: managing underperformance best practice guide
• Fair Work Ombudsman: unfair dismissal
• Fair Work Commission: what is the Small Business Fair Dismissal Code?

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