What is: Rosters

Determining when staff work

As a manager, you’re responsible for rostering, or allocating when staff work. It’s important you meet all rostering requirements that apply to your work unit and that staff are relatively happy with their rosters.

Why is this important and what’s my role in this?

Rostering can be challenging at times, especially when employees have irregular work patterns (i.e. not Monday to Friday every week) and ask for changes to their roster. You need to balance the needs of individual staff with the needs of the whole team. Most importantly, you have to allocate staff in a way that ensures the best possible patient care.

Sometimes you’ll need to make decisions that staff members don’t like, but your primary role is to ensure the team or area operates effectively. When there are tough decisions to make, remember that you can turn to your leaders or peers for advice and support.

Industrial and legislative requirements

Rosters must meet the industrial requirements that apply to your work area or unit. Certain types of work or work units have extra legislative requirements. Make sure you know the requirements for your area. You can ask your local Human Resource Business Partner if you need more information.

Factors to consider when rostering

When you put together a roster, you need to consider a number of factors including:

minimum staffing levels
skills mix
the number of temporary/casual staff compared with permanent staff (and the financial implications)
the need to adhere to enterprise bargaining arrangements that specify requirements to avoid fatigue
length of break between shifts

Before you change a roster already in place…

If your unit has a roster in place, don’t make any changes until you understand the industrial and union implications. Contact your Human Resource Business Partner to learn about these before committing to any roster changes.

What do I need to do?

Understand the rostering system, including industrial and legislative requirements.
Plan when you’ll regularly develop rosters.
Develop rosters (ask a colleague for a spreadsheet template if you don’t have one).
Monitor your roster and/or staff working hours so that the workload is reasonable and sustainable.
Make sure staff use their flexible work accruals to manage fatigue. Take action if they can’t.