Hotel staff roster software for every department, from breakfast to the night porter

A hotel runs around the clock, and every department keeps a different clock. Breakfast starts at 6.30, housekeeping works the morning checkouts, reception covers three shifts, the kitchen does lunch, bar food and a wedding for 180, the bar runs late, and the night porter holds the building from 11pm to 7am. Most hotels build each department's roster separately, then discover on Friday that the same banqueting server is on the wedding until 2am and the breakfast floor at 7.

What makes a hotel roster different

Departments that share people

Housekeeping staff who help with breakfast. Bar staff who move to banqueting for a wedding. A receptionist who covers the night desk when the porter is off. The roster only works if every department is on it, with each shift tagged to where the person is.

Night work

Night time under the Organisation of Working Time Act is midnight to 7am, and Citizens Information explains that someone who normally works at least 3 hours in that window is a night worker. For night workers:

• Average working time should be no more than 8 hours in each 24-hour period.
• The WRC sets the weekly limit at 48 hours averaged over 2 months, unless a Labour Court-approved collective agreement sets a longer period.
• The employer must offer a free health assessment before night work starts and at regular intervals.
• Under-18s generally can't do night work.

Wedding weekends and rest

The 11-hour daily rest rule bites hardest after a wedding. A banqueting server who finishes at 2am can't start again before 1pm. Weekly rest is 24 consecutive hours in every seven days, after a daily rest period. And where changing shifts mean someone can't get their normal rest, the WRC's Code of Practice on Compensatory Rest Periods says they get a rest period later instead.

Seasons

Many Irish hotels double their team between Easter and October. The 48-hour average week is normally measured over 4 months, but over 6 months where work is seasonal or has a foreseeable surge, so a heavy August can be balanced by a quiet November.

Live-in staff

Where staff live in, the National Minimum Wage Order 2025 lets board count at €1.27 per hour worked and lodgings at €33.42 a week or €4.77 a day towards the €14.15 an hour minimum. Keep those arrangements written down.

How ShiftComplete handles a hotel roster

ShiftComplete is a roster and operations app for hospitality. It runs in the browser on any phone, tablet or computer, including the PC on reception, so there's nothing to install.

Your departments as staff areas

Set up your own areas: Reception, Night Desk, Housekeeping, Breakfast, Kitchen, Bar, Banqueting, Leisure. Each person can have up to four time blocks in a day, each tagged with an area, so a housekeeper's Saturday reads 07:00 to 10:30 Breakfast, then 10:30 to 15:00 Housekeeping.

Availability from every department

Staff mark days as available, partial or off from their phone weeks ahead, with a note. Holidays are recorded so nobody gets rostered while they're away, and leave requests can come in from the phone for a manager to approve. Fixed weekly schedules suit the night porter who always does Sunday to Thursday.

Events that drive cover

Put weddings, conferences and big Sunday lunches on the day as events. A 180-guest wedding on Saturday needs six more in banqueting from 3pm and two more in the kitchen; a conference on Tuesday needs an early breakfast. Day notes carry the detail ("Coach of 40 checking in 4pm, two on reception").

A fair draft, then your judgement

Weight the people you want on, such as your banqueting supervisor for the wedding or your most experienced receptionist for the Monday rush. ShiftComplete builds a draft roster in seconds across the departments, fair to the team. You then check the late finish and early start pairs, move what needs moving, and publish.

Publish to every phone

Each person sees their own shifts under My rota on their phone, and the roster can be emailed on publish. Team announcements reach everyone without a WhatsApp group per department.

More than one property

Multi-site is built in: switch venues, a group dashboard, area-manager roles and unlimited managers. Staff can work across more than one hotel in the group.

A wedding Saturday at a 45-bedroom hotel (an example)

Picture a 45-bedroom hotel in the west with a function room for 200 and 48 staff across six departments.

• Events: a wedding for 180 on Saturday from 3pm; a full house of guests for breakfast on Sunday.
• Weighting: the banqueting supervisor and two strongest bar staff onto the wedding.
• The draft puts three banqueting servers on until 2am. The general manager moves two of them off the Sunday breakfast and onto a Sunday evening shift, so they get their 11 hours.
• The night porter is on his fixed Sunday to Thursday pattern; relief cover takes Friday and Saturday.
• Published on Wednesday, on every phone.

The rest of the hotel's records

Temperature logs for every kitchen fridge, freezer, hot-hold point and bar cooler; a 14-allergen list floor and banqueting staff can search; checklists for opening, closing, housekeeping and weekly checks that differ by weekday; incident and maintenance logs with photos and status; risk assessments kept and printed from the app; and a weekly report with an audit log you can export. It helps you keep the records an EHO from the HSE asks to see. If you switch on clocking in and out, staff clock in on their phone or a shared tablet and you can download hours against the roster as a spreadsheet.

Pricing

€1.99 per active staff member per month, every feature included, no per-site or per-department fee, no contract. A 48-person hotel pays €95.52 a month; if you have more than 100 staff, talk to us. The first 60 days are free with no card, and you can book a free 15-minute set-up call.

From our own hospitality group

ShiftComplete was built inside our own hospitality group, Kirkham Hospitality, which runs The Lounge in Oswestry and Knock & Snitch. Owner Graeme Kirkham:

"The rota stopped being a Sunday-night argument the week we switched over. The chef stopped being the only person who knows what's in the kitchen. And the EHO turn up to a screen, not a box file." Graeme Kirkham, Owner, The Lounge Oswestry & Knock & Snitch

Who it suits

• Independent and family-run hotels with 20 to 100 staff.
• Hotels with weddings and functions most weekends.
• Seasonal hotels that grow and shrink their team every year.
• Small hotel groups that share staff between properties.

For the rules behind the roster, see our guide to the Organisation of Working Time Act in hospitality.