A pub roster app for Irish pubs, built around the Sunday trade

A pub roster in Ireland is built around Sunday. Doors open at 12.30pm, the lunch trade runs into the match, and the evening can be packed or dead depending on who won. Midweek is steady regulars until a funeral brings eighty people in for soup and sandwiches with a day's warning. Then there's the county final, the 21st in the lounge, the October public holiday weekend and the whole of Christmas week.

Most publicans keep the roster on a calendar behind the till, with changes sent to a WhatsApp group. It holds until two people both think they're off on Sunday.

What makes an Irish pub roster tricky

Sunday is a working day and a rest day

Sunday is the busiest shift in a lot of country and town pubs. Two Irish rules sit on it. Citizens Information explains that the weekly rest period of 24 hours in seven days should be a Sunday unless the contract says something different. And under the Organisation of Working Time Act, staff who work Sundays are entitled to a Sunday premium, paid time off in lieu, or a mix, where it isn't already built into their pay. You can't get either right if you can't see, week by week, who actually worked the Sunday.

Ten public holidays, and part-timers count too

Ireland has 10 public holidays. A part-timer qualifies once they've worked 40 hours in the 5 weeks before the holiday, and the employer chooses the benefit: a paid day off on the day, a paid day off within a month, an extra day of annual leave, or an extra day's pay. Good Friday is not a public holiday. The roster has to show who worked each one.

Notice and records

Where a contract doesn't fix start and finish times, section 17 of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 says staff must be told them at least 24 hours before the first day of the week they're rostered. And if the WRC calls, it can ask for start and finish times, breaks and rest periods for every employee. A roster changed by text message is hard to stand over.

What a good pub roster app does

• Staff give their availability on their own phone, weeks ahead, so you aren't collecting it across the bar.
• You can mark the days that change everything: a match, a funeral, a function in the lounge.
• The draft is fair, so the same three people don't get every Sunday.
• Split days are clear: lunch on the floor, back for the evening on the bar.
• The final roster lands on every phone the moment you publish, with a timestamp.

How ShiftComplete runs a pub roster

ShiftComplete is a roster and operations app for hospitality. It runs in the browser on any phone, tablet or computer: nothing to download.

Availability, straight from the staff

Each person marks days as available, partial or off, weeks in advance, with a note if they need one ("college Tuesdays", "training with the club Thursday evening").

Events for the days that aren't normal

Add the event to the day and the draft is built with the extra cover in place: the county final on Sunday needs two more on the bar from 2pm; a funeral on Wednesday needs someone on the kitchen and two on the floor from noon. Day notes sit on the roster too ("Keg delivery 9am, cellar access needed").

Weighting and a fair draft

Weight the people you want on, such as your strongest bar person for the Sunday close or the cook who does the carvery. ShiftComplete builds a draft roster in seconds from availability, events and weightings, spread fairly across the team. It's a draft: you drag shifts around until it's right.

Publish once

Publish and the roster appears on every phone under My rota, and can be emailed too. Everyone sees the same version, well ahead of the 24 hours.

Breaks, rest and the Saturday close

Pub hours set the shape of the week. Citizens Information gives normal hours for drinking on the premises as 10.30am to 12.30am on Fridays and Saturdays and 12.30pm to 11pm on Sundays. Someone who serves the Saturday late shift and finishes cleaning down at 1.15am needs 11 consecutive hours' rest, so they can't start before 12.15pm on Sunday. That's fine for a 12.30pm opening, but not if you've also put them down for an 11am set-up.

On the day itself, the Organisation of Working Time Act gives a 15-minute break after more than 4½ hours and a 30-minute break after more than 6 hours (which can include the first 15), and the break can't be tacked on at the end of the shift.

ShiftComplete lets you give one person up to four time blocks in a day, each tagged with an area you set up: Bar, Lounge, Kitchen, Beer Garden, Function Room. So a Sunday can read 12:00 to 16:00 Lounge, then 19:00 to 23:30 Bar, and the person knows where to stand. Holidays are recorded in the app, so you don't roster someone who's away, and staff can request leave from their phone for you to approve if you switch that on. The app shows you the shifts; checking breaks and rest against the rules is still your call as the employer.

A Sunday in a town pub (an example)

Picture a pub on a market town's main street with a lounge, a public bar and a kitchen that does Sunday lunch, and 14 staff.

• By Wednesday, everyone has marked availability for the week after next. Two students have a 21st in Galway on Saturday.
• The publican adds events: the county final on Sunday, +2 on the bar from 2pm; a christening for 40 in the lounge at 1pm.
• She weights her head barman onto Sunday afternoon and the cook onto the christening.
• ShiftComplete builds the draft. She moves the Saturday closer off the Sunday set-up and publishes on Wednesday night.

The rest of the pub's day

The same app keeps temperature logs for every fridge, keg cooler and freezer, a 14-allergen list floor staff can search, opening and closing checklists that change by weekday, incident and maintenance logs with photos, and team announcements. It helps you keep the records an EHO from the HSE asks to see, in one place.

What it costs

€1.99 per active staff member per month, every feature included, no per-pub fee and no contract. A 14-person pub pays €27.86 a month. The first 60 days are free and you don't need a card. Set-up takes about five minutes, and you can book a free 15-minute set-up call if you'd like a hand.

Built inside 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's for

• Family-run and owner-operated pubs where the publican writes the roster.
• Food pubs that need the kitchen and the bar on one roster.
• Pubs with a summer and Christmas team of students who come and go.
• Small groups that want one login across a few houses.

Prefer paper first? Start with our pub roster template, and read up on Sunday premium and public holidays.