Setting up hours for roster workers (days on / days off)

Lots of employees in agriculture, healthcare, hospitality and other industries work to a days-on/days-off roster rather than a standard Monday-to-Friday week.

A common example is 11 days on / 3 days off in dairy farming. These rosters need a bit of calculation before you enter hours and days into PaySauce, because the roster cycle often doesn't line up neatly with a 7-day week.

This article walks through how to work out the right numbers. For background on what each setting does, see our article about managing your employee's hours settings:
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You need to end up with:

If your roster is in the reference table further down, you can skip the calculations and use those values directly. Otherwise, work through the three steps below.

You'll need three numbers from your employee's roster:

You'll also need one number based on how you pay them:

A) Add days on and days off together

This is the length of one full cycle of their roster.

B) Calculate the standard days per pay period

Divide days on by the cycle length, then multiply by 7 (if you pay weekly) or 14 (if you pay fortnightly).

C) Calculate the standard hours per pay period

Multiply the standard days per pay period from B by the hours per rostered day.

The four worked examples below show this calculation for common rosters.

Example 1: 11 days on / 3 days off, 8 hour days, paid fortnightly

This is a 14-day cycle that lines up with a fortnightly pay period exactly, so the numbers come out neatly.

Example 2: 6 days on / 2 days off, 8 hour days, paid fortnightly

This is an 8-day cycle that doesn't line up with a fortnightly pay period. The roster will start on different days from one fortnight to the next, so the answer comes out as a decimal.

Example 3: 7 days on / 7 days off, 10 hour days, paid fortnightly

Another 14-day cycle that lines up exactly with a fortnightly pay period.

Example 4: 11 days on / 3 days off, 8 hour days, paid weekly

The cycle is 14 days but the pay period is 7, so the numbers come out as decimals.

Enter the hours per pay period from Step 1 as the payment hours on the primary payment. This makes sure the pay calculates correctly each period.

For Example 1, that's 88 hours on the primary payment. For Example 2, 84 hours. And so on.

The work pattern uses fields for each day of the week (Monday to Sunday), asking how many hours the employee would normally work on that day. For roster workers whose cycle doesn't match a 7-day week, enter the hours they'd work on a normal rostered day in every day field.

For example, an employee on 11 on / 3 off doing 8-hour days would have 8 entered for every day Monday through Sunday. An employee on 7 on / 7 off doing 10-hour days would have 10 entered for every day.

This is correct because on any given day of the week, the employee has the same likelihood of being rostered on, and when they are rostered on they'd work that full day's hours. The work pattern is used to work out hours for leave entries and to determine otherwise working day treatment for public holidays, so it needs to reflect what a rostered day actually looks like, not an average.

If your employee's roster reliably has them off on the same day each week (for example, they're always off on Sundays regardless of where they are in the cycle), reflect that by setting Sunday to 0 and keeping the rostered hours on the other days.

Find your employee's roster pattern and daily hours in the table below. The values shown are what to enter in PaySauce.

Weekly pay

If your employee's roster isn't in the table and you don't want to use the spreadsheet, you can work it out yourself. You'll need three numbers from your employee's roster:

You'll also need one number based on how you pay them:

Step 1: Add days on and days off together

This is the length of one full cycle of their roster. For example, 5 days on plus 3 days off = 8 days in a cycle.

Step 2: Calculate the standard days per pay period

Divide days on by the cycle length, then multiply by 7 (if you pay weekly) or 14 (if you pay fortnightly).

For 5 on / 3 off paid fortnightly: 5 ÷ 8 = 0.625. Then 0.625 × 14 = 8.75 days per fortnight.

Step 3: Calculate the standard hours per pay period

Multiply the standard days per pay period (from Step 2) by the hours per rostered day.

For 5 on / 3 off with 9 hour days: 8.75 × 9 = 78.75 hours per fortnight.

Step 4: Work out the payment hours

Same as the standard hours per pay period from Step 3. For this example, 78.75 hours.

(This assumes the payment has fixed hours. If hours are entered every pay rather than being fixed, leave the payment hours at 0.)

Step 5: Work out the work pattern

The work pattern is just the hours per rostered day, entered for every day Monday to Sunday. For this example, 9 hours, entered seven times (once for each day of the week).

If the employee picks up shifts ad hoc and doesn't have a fixed roster, set them to 'varied' or 'casual' in leave settings as required rather than 'standard hours'.

If the employee moves to a different roster — say from 11/3 to 6/2, or their daily hours change — recalculate all three: leave settings, payment hours, and work pattern.

See Changing an employee's working hours in our article Managing employee's hours settings for the full checklist.