What is a rotating roster?

Rotating rosters are a strategy for boosting efficiency and flexibility across different industries. Like using HR software to streamline people management , rotating rosters help balance staffing needs with demand while giving employees varied work experiences and fair scheduling.

Simply put, a rotating roster is a work schedule where your employees alternate working different shifts or hours over a set period.

In this article, we'll explore why rotating rosters benefit you as an employer, how to implement them effectively, which industries they suit best, and tips for tackling common challenges. And introduce you to a shift and roster planner that make's creating rotating rosters effortless.

What are the benefits of a rotating roster for employers?

Rolling rosters have several advantages over other typical shift patterns. They often provide an alternative to fixed-shift rosters, which give employees a fixed work schedule that doesn't change from one week to the next.

The advantages of rolling rosters include:

Allows extended opening hours

Dividing operating hours into shifts simplifies continuous business operations. Hospitals use rotating shifts for constant patient care with doctors and nurses alternating between day and night shifts to ensure availability for emergencies.

Provides flexible scheduling

Rolling rosters help manage peak and slow periods. Hospitality businesses use rotating shifts to align staffing with high demand, like hotels scheduling more staff during guest check-in times.

Offers diverse work environments

Rotating shifts expose employees to different colleagues, supervisors, and customers weekly. This helps an employee enhance their understanding of the business and its operations.

Promotes fairness in scheduling

Managers use rolling rosters to distribute shifts evenly, especially during peak periods or weekends. This ensures balanced workload distribution and fosters a fair workplace atmosphere among colleagues.

Enhances skill development

Rotating shifts offer opportunities to learn various roles and perspectives. Chefs, for example, can refine cooking skills across different meal services, gaining versatile expertise.

Boosts productivity

Varied shifts increase employee engagement and motivation, enhancing productivity and service quality. This can result in improved sales, reduced turnover, or increased profits for the business.

Considerations and best practices for implementing rotating rosters

Implementing rotating rosters can offer advantages for both employers and employees, but it requires careful consideration of several key factors.

Firstly, ensuring compliance with modern awards and agreements. Modern awards stipulate how an employee’s ordinary hours should be worked. So, if the modern award applicable to your employee allows for averaging hours then a business may use a rotating rosters schedule, but if it doesn’t the business will need to follow the pattern outlined in the award.

You will also need to make sure that your work schedule adheres to legal breaks and rest periods your employees are entitled to. Different states and territories may have specific requirements that must be followed, along with any applicable union agreements.

Secondly, understanding employee preferences. Conducting surveys to gauge preferences regarding shift patterns and rotations can help accommodate factors like commute times, family obligations, and health considerations. Allowing employees to voice concerns or preferences about the rotation schedule fosters a more supportive work environment.

Thirdly, maintaining scheduling fairness is paramount. Designing the roster to be equitable prevents favouritism and bias in shift assignments. Transparent rotation criteria, taking into account factors such as seniority and workload distribution, ensure fairness across your workforce.

To effectively implement rotating rosters, consider the following best practices:

• Flexibility: Incorporate flexibility into the roster to accommodate unforeseen changes or employee emergencies while maintaining overall schedule integrity.

• Clear communication: Communicate the rotating roster well in advance, using accessible platforms or apps, to allow employees ample time to plan their personal lives accordingly.

• Training and support: Provide comprehensive training for managers and supervisors on effectively managing rotating rosters. Emphasise fairness and compliance with regulations.

• Monitoring and feedback: Regularly monitor the roster's impact through employee feedback and performance metrics. Adjust the schedule as needed based on this feedback to optimise its benefits.

Employers can maximise the benefits of rotating rosters by meeting legal requirements, respecting employee preferences, ensuring fairness in scheduling, and following best practices. When done correctly, this approach promotes greater employee satisfaction, reduces absenteeism, and leads to more efficient workforce utilisation.

Industries that may use rotating rosters

Rotating shift patterns are helpful when a workplace or service provider has extended opening hours. You may use rotating shifts as a business operating outside the conventional nine-to-five schedules.

Here are a few examples of industries that may use rolling rosters:

• Aviation

• Construction

• Emergency services

• Healthcare

• Hospitality

• Logistics

• Manufacturing

• Security

• Transport

As a reminder, it’s important to make sure that the shift pattern you choose is compliant with your obligations under the modern award or agreement that your employees fall under.

Tailoring rotating rosters to unique operational needs

Different types of businesses can tailor rotating rosters to their specific operational needs by considering factors such as:

• Peak times: Adjusting shift patterns to match periods of high demand or activity.

• Skill requirements: Ensuring the right mix of employee skills and experience is available across shifts.

• Fatigue management: Designing schedules to minimise fatigue and optimise performance.

• Employee preferences: Taking into account employee preferences for specific shifts or days off.

For example, in healthcare, a hospital may use rotating rosters to ensure senior staff are available for consultation at all times while allowing junior staff to gain experience across different types of healthcare. In contrast, a manufacturing plant may rotate shifts weekly to ensure equipment operates continuously without downtime.

By tailoring rotating rosters to these unique operational needs, businesses can enhance efficiency, maintain service quality, and support better employee wellbeing.

How to manage challenges of rotating rosters

Before implementing rolling rosters, it’s important to consider their effect on employees' work-life balance and wellbeing. You may also want to consider the complexity of organising rolling rosters and a potential loss in efficiency brought about by constantly changing shifts.

Rolling rosters can mean:

Inconsistent shift patterns

Employees may find it difficult to manage their personal lives when their work schedules change frequently. This can affect their ability to plan appointments and time with family and friends.

Organisational complexity

It can be challenging for managers to create effective rolling rosters. They must balance shift coverage, accommodate employee preferences, and handle unexpected absences while ensuring each shift is properly supervised.

Increased fatigue

Employees may experience physical and mental strain from rotating shifts, especially when transitioning between day and night shifts or working long stretches without adequate rest.

Lower efficiency

Constant changes in schedules and personnel can decrease motivation and consistency among employees. Maintaining consistent performance standards across different shifts can also be challenging.

Here are some ways you can alleviate these issues and effectively manage a rolling roster:

• Give employees as much notice as possible about their schedules and ask for their input on preferred shifts and days off.

• Use software to simplify scheduling, balance workloads, and integrate employee availability into the roster.

• Implement policies that limit consecutive workdays and ensure sufficient rest between shifts to reduce the impact of rotating schedules on employee wellbeing.

• Maintain clear and consistent procedures across all shifts to manage expectations and promote efficiency.

By addressing challenges with clear strategies, organisations can enhance efficiency and employee satisfaction while effectively managing rolling rosters.

How BrightHR can help you create rotating rosters

As with any people management process, it’s important for any business to strategically make decisions and take care when rolling out new procedures to make sure your employees are onboarded properly.

BrightHR simplifies this process by allowing employers to create work schedules with a click, get real-time alerts, send notifications about shift changes, and quickly fill vacant positions with an open shifts feature that lets employees opt into open shifts on a first come first served basis.

Book a free demo to see how BrightHR can transform your shift and roster planning.