How to write a staff roster, step by step

Most rosters are written backwards: open last week's, change the names that complain, send it out. It works until someone quits, the school holidays start, or a Saturday gets busy — then the whole thing is guesswork again. A roster you can repeat every week starts from demand, not from people.

1. Start from the week, not the staff

Before any names, decide what the venue actually needs: how many covers you expect each day, which hours are busy, and which roles have to be on the floor for the doors to open. A Tuesday lunch might need one barista and one on the floor; a Saturday night needs a full kitchen, two bar, three floor. Write those requirements down as shifts with a role and a time — no names yet. That skeleton barely changes from week to week, which is what makes the rest of this fast.

2. Gather availability before you place anyone

The single biggest cause of roster churn is finding out after publishing that someone can't work. Collect availability first — uni timetables, second jobs, the nights someone never works — and treat it as hard data, not a suggestion. If your team keeps availability up to date in an app, this step takes care of itself; if it lives in a group chat, pin a weekly cutoff ("availability changes by Wednesday 5pm").

3. Fill names against rules, not memory

Now place people into the skeleton. For each shift, the person needs to pass four checks:

• Can they do the role? A barista shift needs someone who can actually run the machine.
• Are they available? Not "probably free" — actually available.
• Are they under their hours? Watch weekly caps, and for juniors, school-night limits.
• Do they have enough rest? The hospitality award requires a 10-hour break between rostered shifts (8 hours on a roster changeover). A close followed by an open fails that test.

Doing this by memory is where mistakes live. This is the part software genuinely does better: Rostru's builder only offers people who pass all four checks, and warns on the ones that are marginal.

4. Price the week before you publish it

Multiply every shift by that person's rate as you go, not on payday. If the week lands over your target — most operators aim for a labour cost percentage somewhere in the 20–30% band depending on the format — trim hours while they're still hypothetical. Cutting a published shift is a conversation; cutting a draft shift is a click.

5. Publish early, and in one place

The hospitality award expects a roster to be posted where staff can easily see it, showing names and start and finish times, and changed only by agreement or with 7 days' notice — the detail is in our guide to Fair Work roster rules. Beyond compliance, early publishing is what stops the Thursday-night "am I on this weekend?" messages. Pick a publish day and defend it.

6. Handle changes like they're normal — because they are

Someone will get sick. Decide in advance how swaps work: who can take the shift (same role, under their hours), and who confirms it. A swap process that staff can run themselves — pick someone qualified, they accept, a manager taps confirm — keeps the roster true without the group-chat scramble.

A weekly rhythm that holds

• Wednesday: availability cutoff for the following week.
• Thursday: fill the skeleton, check the cost, fix the warnings.
• Friday: publish. Staff get the whole week, at least a week out.
• Daily: approve exceptions — late clock-offs, swaps — in minutes, not on payday.

If you want the skeleton without the software, start with our free printable roster template. If you'd rather the checks ran themselves, that's what Rostru is.