The complete guide to staff rostering in Australia
A roster is a plan for who works when, and in Australia it is also a plan that has to fit an award, an agreement or a contract. This guide works through the whole job for a small business: what to check first, how to build the week, how to keep it fair and affordable, and how the roster turns into the hours that reach the pay run.
The short answer: start from the trade you expect, set the shifts each day needs, check the award or agreement that covers your people, place staff around their availability, check the hours and the cost, then publish the roster early enough that everybody can plan around it. Keep a record of every change. The rest of this guide is the detail behind each of those steps.
This guide is general information for employers. It does not decide which award or agreement covers an employee or what they must be paid. Check the instrument that applies, the Fair Work Ombudsman’s guidance, or get professional advice for your situation.
What a roster has to do
A roster looks like a grid of names and times, but it is doing several jobs at once. When one of them is forgotten, the week goes wrong in a way that is expensive to fix after the fact: a Saturday nobody opened, a casual who was booked for a shift too short to be worth the trip, a closing shift followed by an opening shift the next morning, or a wage bill that grew because three people overlapped through the quietest hour of the day.
- Cover the trade. The right number of people, with the right skills, at the times customers actually arrive.
- Follow the rules. The award, enterprise agreement or contract that covers each person, and the National Employment Standards underneath them.
- Fit people’s lives. Availability, approved leave, study, second jobs and caring responsibilities.
- Stay within the budget. Hours and rates that add up to a wage cost the business planned for.
- Be known in time. Published early enough, and changed carefully enough, that people can rely on it.
Words worth getting straight
Rostering conversations go around in circles when people use the same word for different things. These are the terms this guide uses, and the glossary has the longer definitions.
| Term | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Roster | The published plan of who works which shifts over a period, usually a week or a fortnight |
| Shift | One continuous block of work with a start and a finish, which may include breaks |
| Rostered hours | The hours the roster planned for a person |
| Worked hours | The hours the person actually worked, from a clock in or a timesheet |
| Paid hours | Worked hours less unpaid breaks, which is what pay is calculated from |
| Availability | The times a person has said they can work, which is different from approved leave |
| Ordinary hours | The hours an award or agreement treats as normal working time, before overtime |
| Penalty rate | A higher rate the award sets for particular times, such as weekends or public holidays |
Check the rules before you build
Most employees in Australia are covered by a modern award or a registered enterprise agreement, and that instrument sets much of what a roster has to respect. Which one applies depends on the business and the work each person does, so confirm it first. The Fair Work Ombudsman’s find my award tool is the place to start, and our award pay rates pages show the hourly rates copied from fourteen common awards.
Before building a roster, look up these parts of the award or agreement and write down what they say for your business:
- The ordinary hours of work, and the span of hours within which ordinary hours can be worked
- Any minimum engagement for casual and part-time employees, which sets the shortest shift that can be rostered
- Meal breaks, rest breaks and the minimum break between one shift and the next
- How weekend, evening, public holiday and overtime work is paid
- What the award says about notice of rosters and consultation about changes to them
- How part-time hours are agreed, and what happens when a part-time employee works beyond them
Underneath every award sit the National Employment Standards. One of them sets maximum weekly hours: 38 hours a week for a full-time employee, plus reasonable additional hours. The Fair Work Ombudsman’s page on hours of work explains how that applies to part-time employees and what makes additional hours reasonable.
The type of employment matters as much as the award. Full-time and part-time employees have agreed hours the roster has to honour. Casual employees have no firm advance commitment to ongoing work, which gives more flexibility in rostering, and most awards pay them a casual loading instead of some entitlements. Know which of your people are which before placing anyone.
Build the week in six steps
- Start from the tradeLook at last month’s sales by hour, the bookings for the week, deliveries, events nearby and the weather forecast. Mark the peaks and the quiet stretches for each day. A roster built from last week’s roster copies last week’s mistakes; a roster built from the trade fixes them. The staff coverage calculator shows the gaps between the people you have planned and the people each part of the day needs.
- Set the shifts each day needsTurn the trade into shifts before thinking about names: who opens, who closes, how many people through each peak, and which roles must always be on, such as a supervisor, a qualified barista or a food safety trained cook. Keep every shift at or above the minimum engagement you looked up.
- Collect availability and leave firstAsk for availability before you build, not after you publish. A standing weekly availability with changes requested by a set day works better than messages scattered through the week. The free staff availability template is a simple way to start.
- Place people fairlyFill the shifts with people whose availability, skills and agreed hours fit. Rotate the shifts nobody wants, such as late closes and Sunday mornings, rather than leaving them with whoever complains least. The shift pattern generator helps set up a rotation that repeats.
- Check the hours and the costTotal each person’s hours for the week and check them against their agreed hours and the maximums. Then estimate the cost, with weekend and public holiday hours kept separate because they cost more. The roster cost calculator and the weekend and public holiday hours calculator do both from your own rates.
- Publish, and say what changedSend the roster to everybody at once, in a place they will actually look, and say clearly when a published roster changes. Keep the version people were given, because a roster that changes quietly is the one that produces disputes.
A worked example: a small cafe’s week
Take a cafe that opens from 6:30 am to 3:00 pm on weekdays and 7:00 am to 2:00 pm on weekends, with a breakfast rush, a lunch peak and a quiet stretch between them. It has a working owner, two part-time baristas, a full-time cook and three casuals who study. The figures here are an example of the method, not a recommendation for any business.
| Day | What the trade looks like | Shifts the day needs |
|---|---|---|
| Monday to Thursday | Commuter rush from 7:00 to 9:00, steady lunch | Opener 6:00 to 2:30, barista 6:30 to 1:00, cook 7:00 to 3:30, one casual 11:30 to 2:30 |
| Friday | Busier lunch with office orders | As above, with a second casual 11:00 to 2:30 |
| Saturday | Brunch peak from 8:30 to 12:30 | Opener 6:30 to 2:30, two baristas, cook, two casuals across the peak |
| Sunday | Later, shorter brunch peak | Opener 6:30 to 2:30, one barista, cook, one casual 8:30 to 12:30 |
With the shifts set, the owner fills them. The part-time baristas are rostered inside the hours they agreed. The casuals’ study timetables rule out weekday mornings, so they cover lunch and weekends. Saturday closes rotate week to week. Before publishing, the owner checks every shift against the minimum engagement in the award, totals each person’s week, and runs the weekend hours separately to see what the Saturday and Sunday shifts will cost at the rates the award sets.
Keep the roster fair
People put up with a busy week. What wears them down is a roster that feels arbitrary. Fairness is mostly a matter of rules the whole team can see.
- Rotate weekends, public holidays and closing shifts, and keep a note of whose turn it is
- Honour availability that was given on time, and say no to late changes the same way for everybody
- Mix short and long shifts across the team rather than giving the short ones to the same people
- Avoid a close followed by an open unless the person has agreed and the award allows the break between them
- Publish at the same time each week, so nobody has to ask
Keep the roster affordable
The cost of a roster is the hours multiplied by each person’s rate, with weekend, public holiday and overtime hours at the higher rates the award sets. Small choices add up: a shift that starts half an hour before the trade does, two people overlapping through a quiet hour, or a long week that tips someone into overtime. Public holidays are the other trap, because the dates differ by state and territory. Check the public holiday dates for your state before building any week that includes one.
A useful habit is to compare the wage cost of the roster with the sales you expect for the week, as a labour cost percentage. The labour cost percentage calculator works it out from your own figures, and tracking it week to week shows whether the roster is drifting away from the trade.
Changes, swaps and sick calls
No roster survives the week untouched. Awards generally include a clause about consulting employees before changing their regular roster or ordinary hours, so check what yours requires before making changes to published shifts. For swaps, set a simple rule: the swap is requested, a manager approves it, and the roster shows who is actually working. For sick calls, keep a short list of people who have said they are happy to pick up extra shifts, and offer the shift to them first rather than messaging the whole team. Record every change, because the roster people were given is part of the story if anything is questioned later.
From the roster to the pay run
The roster is a plan. Pay is based on what was worked, so the week has to end with hours that have been checked. Compare worked hours with rostered hours, sort out missing clock outs and unexplained differences, approve the timesheets, and only then send hours to payroll. Employers also have to keep time and wages records, generally for seven years, as the Fair Work Ombudsman explains. The roster to payroll checklist lists the checks in order.
When a spreadsheet stops being enough
A spreadsheet carries a small team a long way. It starts to strain when availability arrives by text message, changes are made to old copies, nobody can tell which version is current, and hours are retyped from paper into payroll. Those are the signs it is time to move off a spreadsheet.
Roster Flow was built by a bakery and catering business for exactly that week. Staff set their availability and request leave on their phones, the roster shows its estimated cost as it is built from the rates you enter, published shifts reach everybody at once, clock ins become timesheets that show rostered and worked hours side by side, and approved hours go to Xero, MYOB or a CSV file. It does not interpret awards or calculate pay: those decisions stay with you and your payroll.
A checklist for every roster
- The award or agreement for each person is confirmed, with its rostering rules written down
- The week is built from expected trade, not copied from last week
- Every shift meets the minimum engagement and the break rules you looked up
- Availability and approved leave were collected before shifts were placed
- Weekends, closes and public holidays are rotated fairly
- Each person’s hours fit their agreed hours and the maximum weekly hours
- The estimated cost, with weekend and public holiday hours separated, fits the budget
- The roster is published at the usual time, and every later change is recorded
Questions
How far in advance should a staff roster be published?
Check the award or agreement first, because it may say how rosters are notified and changed. Beyond that, the earlier people know their shifts the easier the week is to fill, which is why most small businesses publish a weekly roster before the week starts and at the same time each week.
Can I change a roster after it has been published?
Changes happen, but awards generally require consultation with employees before changing their regular roster or ordinary hours. Read what the award or agreement says, talk to the people affected, and keep a record of what changed and when.
What is the difference between rostered hours, worked hours and paid hours?
Rostered hours are what the roster planned. Worked hours are what actually happened, from a clock in or a timesheet. Paid hours are worked hours less any unpaid breaks, and they are what pay is calculated from.
How many hours can an employee be rostered in a week in Australia?
The National Employment Standards set maximum weekly hours of 38 for a full-time employee, plus reasonable additional hours. Awards and agreements can allow hours to be averaged over a longer period, so check the instrument that applies and the Fair Work Ombudsman’s guidance on hours of work.
Do I need an award to build a roster?
You need to know which award or agreement covers each employee, because it sets things the roster has to respect, such as minimum engagement, breaks and penalty rates. If you are not sure which applies, start with the Fair Work Ombudsman’s find my award tool.
Does Roster Flow work out award pay rates?
No. Roster Flow does not interpret awards or calculate pay. It records the roster and the hours worked, estimates wage cost from the rates you enter, and sends approved hours to your payroll system.
Sources
- Fair Work Ombudsman: find my award
- Fair Work Ombudsman: hours of work
- Fair Work Ombudsman: record-keeping
- Fair Work Ombudsman: public holidays