How to Write a Petrol Station Staff Schedule

Writing a staff schedule for a petrol station is not the same as writing a schedule for a cafe or a clothing store. A servo cannot be understaffed at opening time, cannot run a console shift without someone trained on the system, and cannot ignore the penalty rate implications of every Saturday and Sunday shift. If you are building your schedule from scratch, or trying to make your current process less painful, here is how to do it properly.

Start with your trading hours and minimum staffing needs

Before you think about who is working, establish what needs to be covered. For most servos, this means mapping your trading hours against your minimum staffing requirements by time of day.

A 24-hour site needs at least one trained console operator on every shift, around the clock. A site that closes at midnight needs cover from open to close. A site with a food offer or car wash needs enough staff to handle both functions during peak periods without one covering the other.

Write this down as a grid before you start filling names in. Trading hours down one axis, days of the week across the other. Fill in the minimum headcount per slot. That is your baseline, and your schedule must cover it.

Build around your permanent staff first

Your permanent and part-time staff form the backbone of the schedule. They have contracted hours, set availability, and known reliability. Slot them in first, matching their contracted hours to your highest-priority shifts.

Your most experienced staff should cover your most operationally critical shifts, typically the opens and the weekend peaks. Do not put your newest hire on a solo Saturday morning open three weeks into the job.

Once permanent staff are placed, check two things: have you met your minimum staffing grid, and have you hit anyone's contracted hours without going over? An employee on a 20-hour part-time contract who is rostered for 26 hours is heading toward overtime territory before a single casual is even on the schedule.

Fill gaps with your casual pool

Once permanent staff are placed, look at what is still uncovered. These are the shifts your casual pool fills. Match casuals to gaps based on their availability, their training level, and the requirements of the shift.

Not every casual can fill every gap. A casual who has not been trained on your console cannot be rostered as the sole operator on a morning shift. Keep a note against each casual's profile of what they are cleared to do and which sites they can work, especially if you run multiple locations.

Aim to have at least two casuals available for each shift type. If only one person can work your Tuesday afternoon slot and they cancel, you have a problem. Redundancy in your casual pool is not waste, it is resilience.

Check the wage cost before you publish

Before the schedule goes out, review the total wage cost for the week. This means looking at actual hours by employee type, applying the correct rates including penalties for Saturday, Sunday, and any evening shifts, and comparing the total to your labour budget.

Most operators who do this for the first time are surprised by how much the weekend shifts move the number. A site that looks adequately staffed in headcount terms can be significantly over budget once you account for the penalty rate on every Saturday and Sunday hour.

If the cost is too high, adjust the schedule before publishing, not after payroll. Reducing a Saturday shift from eight hours to six, or replacing a higher-classified employee with a lower-classified one on a routine afternoon, can make a meaningful difference.

Publish with enough lead time

Staff who receive their schedule the morning it starts cannot plan their lives around it. Publishing at least a week in advance, ideally two, gives staff time to arrange childcare, flag conflicts, and request changes before you are locked in.

When the schedule is published, make sure every staff member can actually see it. A schedule pinned to the staffroom noticeboard is not a schedule for the person who works Monday and will not be in until next Monday. A digital schedule that staff can check from their phone removes this problem entirely.

Once published, treat it as final unless there is a genuine operational reason to change it. Constant last-minute changes undermine the reliability your staff need to plan their lives, and unreliable rosters are one of the most common reasons good casuals quietly stop making themselves available.