Shift rostering: what a shift roster is and how to build one

02

Building a roster in eight steps

1. 1Write down the coverage: opening hours, the minimum number of people per hour, and the peaks (Friday evenings, Monday mornings, month end).
2. 2Choose the shift times. Fewer, standard shifts are easier to rotate fairly than many one-off ones.
3. 3Count the demand: shifts × people × hours per shift for the week. Compare it with the contracted hours of your people to see whether you are short before you start.
4. 4Place approved leave and fixed days off first, so they are not overwritten later.
5. 5Choose a pattern: fixed shifts, or a rotation such as morning → afternoon → night. Rotating forward leaves longer gaps between shifts than rotating backward.
6. 6Assign people, spreading nights, weekends and closes so they do not land on the same names every week.
7. 7Check each person against the minimums in the next section: daily rest, weekly rest, average weekly hours and breaks.
8. 8Publish the roster early, and keep it current when shifts are swapped or changed — it is also your record of who worked when.

03

The EU minimums every roster must respect

• Daily rest: at least 11 consecutive hours in every 24-hour period (article 3). A shift ending at 22:00 means no start before 09:00 the next day.
• Breaks: when the working day is longer than six hours, a rest break, with its length and terms set by collective agreement or national law (article 4).
• Weekly rest: in each seven-day period, at least 24 uninterrupted hours plus the 11 hours of daily rest — 35 hours in a row. Where objective, technical or work-organisation conditions justify it, 24 hours may be applied (article 5).
• Weekly hours: on average no more than 48 hours per seven-day period, overtime included (article 6). National law may average this over a reference period of up to four months (article 16).
• Annual leave: at least four weeks of paid leave a year (article 7). Plan it into the roster rather than discovering it later.
• Night work: normal hours of night workers may not exceed an average of 8 hours in 24, and where the work involves special hazards or heavy physical or mental strain, no more than 8 hours in any 24 in which they work at night (article 8).

04

A worked example: 24/7 cover with three shifts

One person on duty around the clock, in three 8-hour shifts: 06:00–14:00, 14:00–22:00, 22:00–06:00. That is 21 shifts and 168 hours a week.

• At 40 contracted hours, 168 hours need 4.2 full-time people before leave, sickness and training — in practice five.
• Rotating forward (two mornings, two afternoons, two nights, then days off) gives at least 16 hours between consecutive shifts within a block; rotating backward (night, then afternoon) can leave only 8 hours, which breaks the 11-hour minimum.
• When the weekly rest follows a night shift ending at 06:00, it runs 35 hours: the next shift starts no earlier than 17:00 the day after next.

05

Spreadsheet, generator or rostering software

• A spreadsheet is enough for a few people on fixed shifts. It will not check rest or weekly hours for you, and it does not tell people when the roster changes.
• A roster generator places people automatically. It is only as good as the rules it knows: rest, weekly ceilings and approved leave must be hard limits, not preferences.
• Rostering software keeps the roster, the rules, leave and swaps in one place, and is where staff look up their shifts.

06

Rostering in 365shift

• Save a set of shifts as a template, or copy a shift, a day or a week and paste it — with or without the people assigned to it.
• Rules per person or per site: «Minimum rest between shifts» (11 hours by default) marks every shift that leaves less; «Max hours per week» is a blocking rule; «Strict five-day week», «Rotating 2-2-2-2», «No rotating shifts» and «Not on certain days» warn by default.
• When you place a leave on the roster, 365shift lists who can take the shifts the person will miss: anyone already on an overlapping shift or on approved leave that day is left out, anyone a blocking rule forbids is shown but cannot be picked, and the rest are ordered by fewest rules broken.
• With the AI Scheduler add-on, Auto-fill fills a week from the same rules; it never relaxes rest, weekly ceilings, overlaps or leave.
• Staff who do not manage the schedule see a week only after it is published.