What is Shift roster?

Definition

A shift roster is the published schedule of who works which shift on which day. It is what turns a shift pattern into something staff can plan around and a supervisor can be held to.

How it works

A roster does two jobs at once: it allocates people to hours, and it is the baseline against which lateness, absence and overtime are measured. Without a published roster, every one of those measurements becomes a matter of recollection.

What it means in India

Rosters intersect with the daily and weekly hour limits and the rest interval requirements in the applicable state Shops and Establishments Act or the Factories Act 1948, and with the weekly off requirement. A roster that quietly schedules somebody for thirteen consecutive days has created a compliance problem before anybody has worked an extra minute.

What people get wrong

• Publishing the roster too late for staff to plan around, which produces the absences the roster existed to prevent.
• Rostering across a weekly off without a substituted holiday.
• Keeping the roster in one place and attendance in another, so nobody can compare planned against actual.

Work out your own number

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Terms this one depends on

More on attendance and shifts

Where this shows up in practice

Almost everything on this page ends up as a line on a payslip or a figure in a register. Shiftelio keeps attendance, leave, salary structure and the statutory deductions in one place, so the number in the letter and the number in the payslip come from the same record.