How to roster for wet-weather and hot-day swings in trade

Written by Roster Flow. Published 6 September 2026.

Some businesses barely notice the weather. For others it decides the day: a cafe with most of its seats outside, a kiosk by the water, an ice creamery, a market stall, a garden centre. A wet Saturday can leave the tables empty while a hot one puts a queue out the door, and a roster written a week earlier has to cope with both.

This article is about planning for those swings, so that most of the adjustment happens before shifts are published. The general method for turning sales into hours is in how to forecast staffing requirements from weekly sales.

Find out what the weather does to your trade

Start with your own figures, not a hunch. Take last summer’s daily sales and note the weather beside each day. The Bureau of Meteorology’s Climate Data Online has past observations, such as daily rainfall and temperature, for weather stations around Australia. Then sort the days into groups:

• Wet days: rain through most of the trading day.
• Hot days: whatever counts as hot where you are, such as a maximum of 32°C or more.
• Mild days: everything else.

Compare the groups on the same day of the week, because a wet Tuesday and a wet Saturday are different problems, and note which hours change most. Heat can move trade from lunch to the late afternoon rather than add to the whole day.

Three hot and three wet Saturdays are not many, so treat the figures as a guide and add to them each season. How to review last month’s rosters sets out how to pull the numbers together.

Build the base roster for the likely week

Build the published roster for the weather you are most likely to get, not the best case or the worst. For most weeks that means mild-day hours, worked out from the sales per labour hour of your normal weeks:

labour hours = forecast sales ÷ sales per labour hour

Keep a floor under every day: the smallest crew that can open, serve and close safely, however poor the forecast. A short-staffed wet day still has to be run properly, and how overstaffing and understaffing affect profit explains why too few people can cost more than it saves.

Add hours from the forecast

Weather swings are easier to handle when the published roster suits a normal day and hours are added when a busy day is forecast. Put the process in writing so it happens the same way every week.

1. Check the forecast at a set timeChoose one time a few days ahead, such as Tuesday for the weekend, and check the Bureau of Meteorology forecast for your area.
2. Use your own triggerSet it from your figures. For example, a forecast maximum of 32°C or more on a Saturday means three extra people from 11:00.
3. Cost the extra hoursPrice them at the rates for that day before offering them. The roster cost calculator shows the effect on the week.
4. Offer the shifts to everyone eligible at onceOffer them to the casuals who are trained and available, with a time to reply by. How to fill open shifts covers doing it fairly.
5. Make each one a proper shiftAn extra shift still has to meet the minimum engagement in your award: at least 2 consecutive hours under the Restaurant and Hospitality awards (clause 11.3), 3 consecutive hours under the Fast Food Industry Award (clause 11.3) and 3 hours under the General Retail Industry Award, apart from a narrow exception for some school students (clauses 11.2 and 11.3).
6. Put it on the rosterAdd each accepted shift to the published roster, so everybody can see it and the hours reach the timesheet. How to communicate roster changes covers telling people.

When rain empties the venue

Quiet days are where the rules matter most. Changing a published roster, cancelling shifts and standing staff down all come with rules, and what applies depends on the award or agreement, the employee and the situation. Before you change anyone’s published shift because of the weather, check your award and read the Fair Work Ombudsman’s pages:

• Rosters, on changing an employee’s regular roster or hours
• Stand downs
• Pay during inclement or severe weather and natural disasters

Confirm which award covers you with the Fair Work Ombudsman’s Find my award tool. What you can plan for yourself is the work. A quiet wet morning suits the jobs that busy days crowd out, as long as they are on a list rather than invented on the day:

• Prep and restocking for the next busy day
• Deep cleaning and small maintenance jobs
• Training a second person on the coffee machine or the till, counted in the wage budget
• Rearranging the inside seating so it works for a wet-weather crowd

Hot days: roster with safety in mind

A hot day brings more customers and harder conditions for the people serving them, especially in a kitchen, behind a coffee machine or at an outdoor counter. Safe Work Australia’s working in heat page says that as a person conducting a business or undertaking, you have a duty to keep workers and your workplace safe from the risks of working in heat. Its guidance on managing the risks gives examples of controls, such as setting up shade and using air conditioners, and scheduling physically demanding activities during cooler parts of the day.

On the roster, that can look like this:

• Heavy jobs early. Put deliveries, stock moves and outdoor setup in the cooler part of the day where you can.
• Share the hottest station. Swap people between the grill or an outdoor counter and a cooler job, rather than leaving one person there all day.
• Breaks that happen. A hot, busy shift is when breaks get skipped. How to plan break times on a busy shift covers placing them so service holds up.
• Enough people. Use your forecast trigger, so nobody is left to push through a rush alone.

For advice about your own workplace, contact the work health and safety regulator in your state or territory. Safe Work Australia lists them on its WHS regulators page.

Storms and severe weather warnings

Severe weather is a safety question before it is a rostering one. The Fair Work Ombudsman’s page on pay during inclement or severe weather says anyone concerned about workplace health and safety during severe weather should contact their local state or territory body for help and advice, and Safe Work Australia points to the Bureau of Meteorology for weather in your area, including temperatures and extreme weather warnings. For the roster:

• Watch the warnings for your area on days when a storm is possible, as well as the forecast.
• Know how people get to work. Staff who walk, ride or catch public transport may want to travel at a different time, which is easier to plan with a day’s notice.
• Keep contact details current, so you can reach everyone on a shift quickly.
• Check the rules before changing shifts, using your award and the Fair Work Ombudsman’s pages above.

A worked example: one Saturday, three forecasts

A cafe with a courtyard, covered by the Restaurant Industry Award, takes about $6,000 on a mild Saturday and runs at $125 of sales per labour hour, so a mild Saturday needs 48 hours. The least it can open with is 32 hours. From last summer’s figures, hot Saturdays averaged 25% more and wet ones 25% less. The published roster for Saturday is built for a mild day, and on Tuesday the owner checks the forecast.

On the hot forecast, the day needs 60 hours, 12 more than the roster. Three shifts of 4 hours add exactly 12. Each is above the 2 hour minimum in clause 11.3, and at 4 hours each is below the 5 hours at which Table 2 in clause 16.2 gives an unpaid meal break. Saturday hours cost more than weekday hours under the award (Table 8, clause 24.2), so the owner prices the extra hours at Saturday rates before offering them, and records each shift on the roster as it is accepted.

On the wet forecast, 36 hours of expected work is still above the 32 hour floor. The roster is already out, the owner does not rewrite it on the strength of a forecast, and the quiet hours go on the list of jobs. When the season’s figures show wet Saturdays are common, the owner builds that into the base roster for future weeks rather than trimming shifts once they are published.

Roster Flow helps when the week keeps changing: 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 open shifts are offered.

Review each weather week

After an unusually hot or wet week, compare forecast sales with actual sales, and rostered hours with the hours worked. Adjust your trigger if the extra shifts were too many or too few, and add the week to your figures for next season. How to compare rostered labour costs with actual labour costs shows what to look at.

A weather roster checklist

• Last summer’s sales sorted into mild, hot and wet days, by day of the week
• A written trigger for adding hours when heat or a busy day is forecast
• The base roster built for the likely weather, above a floor for each day
• The forecast checked at a set time each week
• Extra hours costed at that day’s rates before they are offered
• Extra shifts offered to everyone eligible at once, at or above the minimum engagement
• Your award and the Fair Work Ombudsman’s pages checked before any published shift changes
• Heavy jobs in the cooler part of hot days, with breaks planned
• Your state or territory WHS regulator known for heat and severe weather advice
• Forecast and actual compared after each weather week

Sources

• Fair Work Ombudsman: rosters
• Fair Work Ombudsman: stand downs
• Fair Work Ombudsman: pay during inclement or severe weather and natural disasters
• Fair Work Ombudsman: find my award
• Safe Work Australia: working in heat
• Safe Work Australia: working in heat, managing risks
• Safe Work Australia: WHS regulators and workers’ compensation authorities contact information
• Bureau of Meteorology: Climate Data Online
• 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]

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