Rosters should be flexible to best meet your business needs, as well as the needs of your employees. The Hair and Beauty Award specifies a number of rules that you need to keep in mind when preparing rosters:
- the maximum amount of time that a roster can cover is 4 weeks
- ordinary hours can be worked 5 days in a single week. If ordinary hours are worked on 6 days in one week, then they can be worked on no more than 4 days during the following week
- employees are entitled to have either 2 days off in a row in a single week, or 3 days off in a row in a 2 week period
- ordinary hours and any overtime hours cannot be worked over any more than 6 days in a row
- unless mutually agreed, an employee who works on Sundays as part of their ordinary hours of work is entitled to be rostered off at least 1 Sunday every 4 weeks
- all employees are entitled to at least a 12 hour break between finishing work on one day and starting work the following day
- rosters cannot be changed to avoid award obligations such as public holidays or penalty rates.
Best Practice Tip
Be prepared to be flexible! Your employees will be more flexible with requests from you if they have a say in when they work and if their needs are taken into consideration.
Best Practice Guide on Work & Family (pdf 533KB)
What do you do when someone can’t come into work?
If there is an unexpected staff absence, such as someone calling in sick, an employee’s roster can be changed by mutual agreement, as long as you contact them before they get to work. For example, you may wish to call in a casual employee to cover a shift.