Free daily shift roster (Excel)
One day, hour by hour, with a live count of who is actually on the floor. Breaks are placed in the grid rather than assumed, because the Employment Relations Act sets both how many and how long.
Daily shift roster
Excel format (.xlsx) • Ready to download
No signup required. Works with Excel, Google Sheets and LibreOffice.
This roster template is a planning tool, not legal or payroll advice. It does not calculate holiday pay, alternative days or minimum wage for you. Check Employment New Zealand, or take advice, before relying on a roster for compliance. It does not constitute legal, HR, or professional advice and should not be relied on as a substitute for advice specific to your business, workforce, or circumstances.
Build this roster online instead
The spreadsheet works until you are chasing availability and recalculating hours by hand. Build and share the same roster in the browser — free, no signup.
What's in this template
A single trading day, hour by hour
Hourly columns
06:00 to midnight, so cover is visible by hour rather than inferred from start and finish times.
Grouped by role
Kitchen, bar, floor — four people on shift means nothing if three are behind the same counter.
A live cover count
A total under every hour that recalculates as you mark shifts, so a thin hour shows itself.
Break slots in the grid
Rest and meal breaks placed deliberately, so you are not scheduling the whole floor off at once.
Print-ready
One A4 landscape page with the header repeated. It is meant to go on a wall.
The shared code legend
Identical to every other template on this shelf.
A day by the hour
Mark each hour a person is working. The count underneath turns “we have five people today” into “we have two people at 15:00”, which is a different and more useful sentence.
| Name | Role | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aroha Ngata | Supervisor | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● |
| Tama Wiremu | Floor | ● | ● | MEAL | ● | ● | ● |
| Mei Lin | Floor | ● | ● | ● | |||
| Cover | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
Tama’s unpaid 30-minute meal break is in the grid, which is why 13:00 drops to two. Someone working more than four and up to six hours is entitled to one 10-minute paid rest break and one 30-minute unpaid meal break — placing them is a rostering decision, not an afterthought.
How to build a daily roster in Excel
Four steps
1. Hours across the top
One column per trading hour. Names down the side, grouped by role rather than alphabetically.
2. Mark the hours worked
A single character per cell. Fast to fill in and readable from across a room.
3. Count the cover
A COUNTA row under each hour. This is the row you read once the roster is built.
4. Stagger the breaks
Place rest and meal breaks in the grid. Entitlements scale with hours worked, and they cannot be contracted out of.
The template already has the hourly grid, the formatting and the cover count.
Who uses this template
New Zealand teams whose cover varies within the day
Cafés and restaurants
A lunch rush and an evening service needing completely different shapes of cover.
Retail
Deliveries, footfall and cashing up — three staffing problems in one trading day.
Events and venues
A one-off day where no weekly pattern applies.
Planning a whole week? The weekly roster is the same idea at seven days.
Or see the gap while you build it
A spreadsheet shows the thin hour once you finish and read the count. RosterElf shows understaffed hours as you drag shifts, with live wage cost in NZD beside them.
Cover and attendance on the day
Who is actually here
Live attendance
Who is on site right now, and who has not arrived for a shift that started.
See live attendanceKiosk time clock
A tablet by the door that timestamps every clock-in and takes a photo.
See the kioskTime and attendance
Clock-in records that show what was actually worked, not just what was planned.
See time trackingRostering in software
Building the day faster
Rostering software
Build the roster once, publish it to phones, and let swaps update it without a reprint.
See rosteringAI rostering
Generate a first-draft roster from availability, skills and cover requirements.
See AI rosteringWorkforce analytics
Rostered cost against actual, by site and by week, in NZD.
See analyticsDaily roster FAQ
-
Because cover is an hourly property. A day with five people on it can still have two on the floor at 15:00 once staggered starts and meal breaks are counted, and a shift-based roster will not show that. The cover row is the entire reason to use a daily view.
-
Place them in the grid, staggered. Entitlements scale with hours: 2 to 4 hours gives one 10-minute paid rest break; more than 4 and up to 6 adds a 30-minute unpaid meal break; more than 6 and under 10 adds a second 10-minute rest break. Timing can be agreed between employer and employee, but the entitlement cannot be traded away.
-
06:00 to midnight as supplied. For continuous cover, extend the hour columns and use one sheet per 24-hour period — the COUNTA cover row will extend with the columns.
Before you download
General information only — not legal advice
This document is a general HR template provided for informational purposes only. It is not legal advice and may not reflect the latest changes in legislation or apply to every workplace situation. RosterElf Pty Ltd and the template provider accept no liability for any loss arising from reliance on this document. Users should seek independent legal advice and customise the template to ensure it complies with all relevant laws, employment agreements and workplace requirements.