Free monthly roster template (Excel)
Every day of the month across one row per person. Leave clashes, public holidays and thin weeks all become visible while there is still time to do something about them.
Monthly 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 month you can see at once
A full calendar month
Up to 31 day columns, one row per person, with weekends shaded so a blank Sunday does not read as a gap.
Public holidays shaded
Marked in the date row. Matariki and the regional anniversary day move each year, so they are set per month rather than fixed.
Monthly counts per code
Days worked, on annual leave, sick and on alternative days, counted per person as you fill the grid.
An alternative-day balance
Days earned minus days taken. An alternative holiday does not expire, so a balance nobody tracks only grows.
Role grouping
Rows grouped by role, so a month with three supervisors on leave in the same week is obvious.
The shared code legend
OFF, AL, SICK, BEREAVE, PH, ALT and TR, identical across the shelf.
A month per person
One code per day. The value of the monthly view is not the detail — it is seeing two supervisors booked off in the same week before either request is approved.
| Name | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Worked | ALT owed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aroha Ngata | D | D | PH | OFF | 18 | 2 |
| Tama Wiremu | AL | AL | AL | AL | 12 | 0 |
| Mei Lin | D | D | D | D | 21 | 1 |
The ALT column is the one that matters over a month. Aroha is owed two alternative holidays from public holidays she worked — whole paid days off that carry forward indefinitely until taken or, on termination, paid out.
How to build a monthly roster
Four steps
1. Set the month
Enter month and year, then check the day count and which days fall on a weekend.
2. Mark the public holidays
Including the regional anniversary day for where the team works. Both it and Matariki move every year.
3. Block approved leave first
Leave before shifts. It is fixed; the roster is not, and building around it is far easier than unpicking it.
4. Update the alternative-day balance
Every public holiday worked that was an otherwise working day adds a day. Do it monthly or it never happens.
A month is the right horizon for leave and public holidays; a week is the right one for cover. Use the weekly roster alongside it.
Who uses this template
New Zealand teams planning a month ahead
Aged care and health
Where leave is approved a month out and minimum staffing cannot slip.
Security and facilities
Continuous cover planned in monthly blocks across several teams.
Education and childcare
Term calendars, public holidays and planned closures on one sheet.
For the leave side properly — accruals, balances and the “otherwise working day” test — see leave management.
Or let the leave balance keep itself
An alternative-day balance in a spreadsheet is only right until someone forgets to update it. RosterElf adds the day automatically when a public holiday is worked, and shows the balance beside every leave request.
Leave and public holidays
What a monthly view is really for
Leave management
Holidays Act annual holidays, sick leave, bereavement leave and alternative days in one place.
See leave managementDigital HR records
The wage, time and leave records the Employment Relations Act requires you to keep.
See HR recordsWorkforce analytics
Rostered cost against actual, by site and by week, in NZD.
See analyticsRostering in software
The parts a spreadsheet cannot do
Rostering software
Build the roster once, publish it to phones, and let swaps update it without a reprint.
See rosteringRecurring shifts
Repeating patterns that roll forward on their own instead of being copied each week.
See recurring shiftsMobile roster app
The published roster on every phone, so the wall copy is never the only version.
See the appMonthly roster FAQ
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Leave the unused day columns blank — the COUNTIF totals ignore empty cells, so a 30-day month totals correctly without deleting a column. Deleting columns will break the count ranges.
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The ALT owed column is a running balance, so carry the closing figure into the next month’s sheet. Alternative holidays do not expire — an employee can be required to take one at a reasonable time if it has been owed for 12 months, but it never simply lapses, and any balance is paid out on termination.
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Yes. Upload the .xlsx to Google Drive and open it with Google Sheets — the grid, the code drop-downs and the monthly counts all carry over.
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.