Free weekly staff roster template for Irish hospitality

Below is a weekly staff roster template for Irish pubs, restaurants, cafés and hotels. Most roster templates only plan shifts. This one is laid out so the same sheet also records what Irish law asks you to keep: start and finish times, breaks, and enough detail to show rest between shifts. It also flags Sundays and public holidays, the two days that change what people are owed.

Copy the tables into Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers, or print them for the office wall.

Part 1: the weekly roster

Week commencing (Monday): ________ Published on: ________ Public holiday this week? Y / N: ________

Cell format: start-finish (break), for example 16:00-00:15 (30). For a split shift: 11:00-15:00 / 17:30-22:30 (15).

Codes: OFF = rest day. AL = annual leave. PH = public holiday (mark the whole column as well). (M) = manager or keyholder on duty. U18 after a name = under-18, rostered under the young persons rules.

☀ Sunday column: every shift here is Sunday work. If your contracts pay a separate Sunday rate or time off in lieu, this is where you pick it up.

11-hour rest check row: for each day, compare everyone's finish the night before with their start that day. Tick if every gap is at least 11 hours; cross and fix if not.

Hours column: hours actually worked, so subtract unpaid breaks and the gap in a split shift.

Part 2: the actual hours record

The plan and what happened are rarely the same. This second sheet records the real times, which is what an inspector will look at.

The WRC's list of statutory records includes hours of work for each employee with starting and finishing times, meal breaks and rest periods, on Form OWT1 or something to the same effect. Citizens Information says records can be kept electronically, such as with a clock-in system, and that employees can complete their own OWT1 (or similar) each week for the employer to sign, if both agree.

A filled-in example: a 60-cover restaurant in Galway

Here's how the roster might look for a restaurant open Wednesday to Sunday, lunch and dinner, closed Monday and Tuesday. Names and hours are illustrative.

Things to notice:

• Ciara goes from 23:00 Saturday to 12:00 Sunday: 13 hours. ✓
• Tomás has a 15-minute break in each block, even the 4½-hour lunch block that sits right on the line, and Sunday plus Monday and Tuesday off covers his weekly rest.
• Jakub finishes at 23:30 Saturday and starts at 11:30 Sunday: exactly 12 hours. ✓
• Éabha is 16 and in school. Friday ends at 22:00 (she has a 30-minute break owed after 4½ hours, so the 15 shown should be 30: fix it). Her Saturday 12:00 start is 14 hours after Friday's finish, well over her 12-hour minimum. Sunday off, with Monday to Thursday, gives her far more than the 2 days off in 7 she needs.

The deliberate mistake in Éabha's row is the kind of thing the checklist below is for.

How to fill in the template, week by week

1. Mark the fixed points first. Annual leave (AL), rest days (OFF), and any public holiday (PH) in the week. Check who has asked which public holiday benefit applies.
2. Collect availability by a set day, say Wednesday for the week after next.
3. Place managers and keyholders on every open and close.
4. Place the kitchen, then the floor and bar around your bookings and events.
5. Write start, finish and break in every cell, not just "lunch" or "late".
6. Run the 11-hour rest check for every day and fix any cross before you publish.
7. Publish at least 24 hours ahead of anyone's first shift where contracts don't fix their times (section 17), and ideally 10 to 14 days ahead. Post it where everyone can see it, or send it to them.
8. Fill in Part 2 as the week happens, and keep both sheets for 3 years.

Pre-publish checklist

• Every shift has a start, a finish and a break.
• Anyone working more than 4½ hours has a 15-minute break; more than 6 hours, 30 minutes; mid-shift, not at the end.
• 11 hours between finishing one day and starting the next (12 hours for 16 and 17-year-olds).
• Everyone has 24 hours off in the week, after an 11-hour rest.
• Nobody is heading above a 48-hour average across your reference period.
• Under-18s: 8 hours a day and 40 a week at most, a 30-minute break after 4½ hours, finish by 10pm (11pm in licensed premises on a night not before a school day).
• Sunday shifts and public holidays are marked.
• Last week's roster and actual hours are saved, not overwritten.

The detail behind each line is in our guide to the Organisation of Working Time Act in hospitality. For splits, see split shifts and rest breaks; for notice, see roster notice and changes.

Where paper and spreadsheet rosters fall down

They work, but they share the same weak spots: someone edits last week's file instead of copying it, the photo in the group chat is two versions out of date, the actual hours sheet never gets filled in, and nobody checks the 11-hour gaps when a shift is swapped on Thursday night.

Or let ShiftComplete run it

ShiftComplete does the same job without the spreadsheet. Staff set their availability on their phone weeks ahead. You add events (a christening party, the match on Sunday), weight the people you want on, and ShiftComplete builds a draft roster in seconds, fair across the team. Each person can have up to four time blocks a day, each tagged to an area such as Bar, Kitchen or Floor. Publish, and the roster appears on every phone and can be emailed. Holidays are recorded so nobody is rostered while off. With time tracking switched on, staff clock in and out on their phone or a shared tablet, and you can download hours as a spreadsheet with a total per person.

It helps you keep the roster and hours records a WRC inspector asks to see. €1.99 per active staff member per month, free for 60 days, no card, no contract.