Multi-location staff rostering guide

A second location adds more than rent. It brings a second set of trading hours, a second close, and staff who could work at either site, which is where double bookings, long weeks and travel costs creep in. This guide sets up one roster across every location, with the award rules that matter once people move between sites.

Written by Roster Flow. Published 20 July 2026.

Most multi-location rosters start as two single-site rosters kept side by side, often by two different managers. That works until someone is booked at both sites on the same morning, a casual picks up extra shifts at the second site and ends up with more hours than anyone intended, or the owner asks what each site spent on wages last week and nobody can say. The fix is one roster that covers every location, with each shift tagged to the place it is worked.

The general steps for building any roster are in the complete guide to staff rostering. This guide covers what changes when there is more than one site.

A pink rendered shop building with a striped green and white awning over one front window and a second window beside it — Photo: Pexels

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What changes when you add a location

People can be in two places on the roster. Anyone who can work at either site can be double-booked across them, and checking one site’s roster will not catch it.
Hours add up across sites. A person’s week is the total of their shifts at every location, not the shifts on one manager’s roster.
Travel becomes part of the day. Moving between sites takes time, and some awards pay for it.
Every site needs its own open and close. Each location needs someone trusted with keys, cash and alarms on every shift that opens or closes it.
Costs need splitting. Wages have to be counted against the site where the work was done, or you cannot tell whether each location pays its way.

Choose how staff are shared

Decide early whether each site has its own team, whether everyone works everywhere, or something in between. Each can work, but they are rostered differently.

Three ways to organise staff across locations
Structure	How it works	Suits	Watch for
Separate teams	Each person works at one location only, and each site has its own roster	Sites far apart, or with different trade and skills	One site short while the other has people to spare
Shared pool	Anyone can be rostered at any location	Sites close together with the same menu or products	Double bookings, travel between sites and uneven hours
Home site with cover	Each person has a home location and covers another site when needed	Many small businesses with two or three sites	Keeping track of who is trained for which site

A home site with cover is an easy place to start. It keeps teams stable and gives each manager a clear group of people, while still letting you move someone across when a site is short.

Set up the basics once

Before the first combined roster, write down:

Each location’s trading hours, including when setup starts and when the close finishes.
The roles each site needs on each shift, such as a barista, a cook, a supervisor or a key holder.
Each person’s home location, and the other sites they are trained and willing to work at.
Each person’s availability, agreed hours and employment type, which apply at every site.
Who manages each site’s roster, and who can move people between sites.
Travel time between sites, by the way people actually travel.

Keep one staff list for the whole business, not one per site. If the same person is on two lists, their hours and availability drift apart. The glossary entry on multi-venue rostering sums up the idea.

Build the week across every location

Mark leave and availabilityEnter approved leave and unavailability for everyone once, so it applies at every site.
Place home-site shiftsRoster each site’s fixed and regular shifts with its own people first.
List each site’s gapsWrite down the shifts each site still needs, with the role and skills required.
Fill gaps across sitesOffer uncovered shifts to trained staff from other sites, checking their total hours and travel first.
Check people, not sitesLook at each person’s whole week across all locations for overlaps, breaks between shifts and total hours.
Cost and publish togetherCheck each site’s wage cost, then publish every location’s roster at the same time.

Publishing every site together matters. If one site’s roster goes out on Thursday and the other on Sunday, anyone who works at both cannot plan their week, and a change at one site can break the other. For leave, see how to manage annual leave when building a roster.

Staff who work at more than one site

Check the person, not the site. Three checks catch most problems:

No overlaps. A person can only be in one place, so allow for travel: a shift ending at 11:00 at one site cannot be followed by an 11:00 start at a site 20 minutes away. How to prevent double-booking employees covers the checks in detail.
Total hours. Under the National Employment Standards, an employer must not request or require a full-time employee to work more than 38 hours in a week, or any other employee more than the lesser of 38 hours and their agreed ordinary hours, unless the additional hours are reasonable. Where the same business employs the person at every site, count every site towards that week.
Breaks between shifts. A close at one site followed by an open at another is still a close followed by an open. The Restaurant Industry Award requires at least 10 hours between finishing ordinary hours one day and starting the next for employees other than casuals (clause 15.1(e)), and the General Retail Industry Award requires 12 hours, or 10 by agreement (clause 16.6).

Part-time employees need extra care. Under the Restaurant Industry Award and the Hospitality Industry (General) Award, a part-time employee must not be rostered outside the availability agreed in writing with them (clause 10.7 in both), so shifts at a second site have to fit inside it. How to create fair weekend and closing-shift rotations covers breaks and days off in more detail.

Travel between locations: what the awards say

Whether travel to another site is paid depends on the award, and the rules differ a lot. These are from the awards as consolidated to 1 July 2026:

Rules for working at another location in four awards
Award	What it says	Clause
Cleaning Services Award 2020	An employee required to travel from one workplace to another is paid for the time spent travelling between workplaces as if they were working, and the employer pays the fares	17.12
General Retail Industry Award 2020	An employee required to work at a place other than their usual place of work is paid for travel time beyond their normal travel at their ordinary rate (150% on a Sunday or public holiday), and reimbursed the additional travel costs	19.4 and 19.5
Fast Food Industry Award 2020	An employee required to work at a place other than their usual place of work is paid for extra travel time beyond their normal travel at their minimum hourly rate (150% on a Sunday or public holiday), and reimbursed the extra fares	17.6
Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2020	A full-time or part-time employee required to work more than 80 kilometres from their usual place of work is paid the fares reasonably spent travelling there from their usual place of work	26.10

Several of these clauses turn on the employee’s usual place of work, so for someone whose regular roster already splits between two sites, check how they apply before you rely on them. Other awards have their own rules. Confirm yours with the Fair Work Ombudsman’s Find my award tool, and check current rates on pages such as the General Retail Industry Award pay rates.

Whatever the award says, moving people partway through a shift costs time and goodwill. Where you can, keep a person at one site for a whole shift and move them between days rather than within one.

Keys, opening and closing at each site

Every location needs someone responsible on each shift that opens or closes it: a person who holds the keys and alarm code, can count the till and knows the closing routine. When you add a site, list the key holders for each one and check that every opening and closing shift has at least one. If only one person can close the second site, a single sick call can close it early, and training a second closer costs less than that.

A woman in a yellow jacket turning a key in the lock of a wooden door — Photo: Pexels

A worked example: two cafes, one team

An owner runs two cafes 3 kilometres apart, Harbour St and Hill St, both covered by the Restaurant Industry Award. Most staff have a home site, and a few cover both. This is one week’s rostered hours by person and by site.

One week of rostered hours across two cafes
Person	Harbour St	Hill St	Total	Check
Sam, full-time manager	30	8	38	38 hours for the week
Josh, part-time	16	8	24	His 24 guaranteed hours, all inside his availability
Mia, casual	12	14	26	Inside her availability at both sites
Lena, casual	20	0	20	Home site only
All staff	78	30	108

Hill St’s roster on its own shows Sam and Josh with 8 hours each, which looks light. Only the combined view shows Sam at 38 hours and Josh at his 24 guaranteed hours, so any further shift for either would be additional hours. Josh closes Harbour St at 16:00 on Saturday and opens Hill St at 6:30 on Sunday, a gap of 14.5 hours, which is more than the 10 hours clause 15.1(e) requires.

Sam’s 8 hours at Hill St go on Hill St’s wage cost, not Harbour St’s. Counted where they were worked, the hours show Harbour St carried 78 of the week’s 108.

Labour cost by location

Record every shift against the site where it is worked, including a manager’s time split between sites. Then compare each site’s wages with its own sales, not the business total, because a strong site can hide a weak one. The labour cost percentage calculator works out the share for each site.

Shared staff only make the numbers messy if their hours are not tagged. Decide how to treat time that belongs to no single site, such as an owner doing the ordering for both, and apply it the same way every week.

Publishing and changing rosters across sites

Each site’s team needs to see its roster. The Restaurant Industry Award requires a roster showing each full-time and part-time employee’s name and start and finish times, posted in a conspicuous place that is easily accessible to employees (clause 15.3). The General Retail Industry Award requires the roster to be available to all employees on a noticeboard at or near the workplace or by accessible electronic means, and a copy of each completed roster to be kept for at least 12 months (clause 15.9). Anyone who works at two sites should be able to see both.

Changes follow the same rules as at a single site. Under the Restaurant Industry Award, a full-time or part-time employee’s roster can be changed by agreement or with 7 days’ notice (clause 15.3(d)). If moving someone to another site changes their regular roster or ordinary hours, the Fair Work Ombudsman says the employer has to discuss it with them first: explain the change, invite their views on its impact and consider those views. How far in advance to publish a staff roster covers timing.

Roster Flow handles the weekly part of this: 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 multi-location rostering.

A checklist for multi-location rosters

One staff list for the whole business, with each person’s home site and trained sites
Every shift tagged to the location where it is worked
Each person’s week checked across all sites for overlaps, allowing for travel
Weekly hours totalled across every site
Part-time shifts at any site inside agreed availability
Breaks between a close at one site and an open at another meet the award
Travel between sites checked against the award before it is rostered
A key holder on every opening and closing shift at every site
Every site’s roster published at the same time, and visible to its team

Questions

Do hours worked at two locations count together?

Where the same business employs the person at both, count them together. The National Employment Standards limit the hours an employer can request or require in a week unless the additional hours are reasonable.

Do I have to pay staff for travelling between my locations?

It depends on the award. The Cleaning Services Award pays travel between workplaces as if the employee were working, and the General Retail and Fast Food awards pay extra travel time when an employee is required to work away from their usual place of work.

Should each location have its own roster?

Each site’s team needs to see its own roster, but build them together from one staff list. Checking people across every site is how you catch double bookings and long weeks.

Can I roster a part-time employee at a second location?

Yes, as long as the shifts fit inside the availability agreed with them under awards such as the Restaurant and Hospitality awards. If the move changes their regular roster, discuss it with them first.

Who should manage the roster at each location?

Usually each site’s manager, with one person, often the owner, deciding when staff move between sites. Write down who can do what, so two managers do not book the same person.

How do I split wage costs between locations?

Record every shift against the site where it was worked, including a shared manager’s hours, and compare each site’s wages with its own sales.

Sources

A two-venue weekOne weekly rhythm across a cafe and a catering kitchen.Multi-location rosteringHow Roster Flow handles more than one site.The complete rostering guideThe steps for any small business.Prevent double-bookingChecks that catch clashes before they happen.

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