Coverage planning and staffing levels

Base targets on real demand

Look at how busy each day-part actually is and set coverage per shift accordingly — mornings, evenings and weekends rarely need the same numbers.

Avoid the two failure modes

Understaffing burns out your team and hurts service; overstaffing pays for idle hours. The right target sits between them, per shift.

Let coverage drive the roster

Set the target per shift once and let Rosterna fill it — up to the number you set, so busy shifts get more people and quiet ones are not overstaffed. Any shift it can’t fill is flagged, so you see the gap before the day.

Turn demand into a number per shift

Start from your own records — sales by hour, calls, patients, orders — not from habit. For each shift, work out how many people the work needs at its busiest point, and round up.

Then check the totals add up: the weekly hours you need to cover, divided by the weekly hours one person works, plus a buffer for leave and absence, rounded up. That is the headcount you need. The free staffing calculator does this sum for you.

Different days, different numbers

Demand moves through the week and the year. In Rosterna the need is set per shift for each date — so a Thursday night can need more people than a Sunday night, a closed day can need zero, and you can apply a pattern to every month instead of typing it again.