What this hotel roster is for
A hotel never closes, but its departments do not all work the same clock. Front office needs someone at the desk around the clock, housekeeping is busiest between check-out and check-in, the kitchen works split shifts around breakfast, lunch and dinner, and F&B service stretches late. One roster format has to hold all of that, and it has to change every week with occupancy.
This template is for general managers, HR executives and department heads in hotels, resorts and serviced apartments with roughly 20 to 200 staff. It gives each department its own weekly grid with shift codes that match hotel practice, computes weekly hours per employee so overtime and under-scheduling are visible, and puts a required-headcount row under each department that you derive from the week's occupancy forecast.
It is a weekly roster, because hotel occupancy is forecast weekly; copy the sheet for each week of the month. It works alongside, not instead of, the attendance record: use the housekeeping attendance sheet or your biometric log for who actually turned up.
What is inside: Roster and Departments sheets
The Roster sheet has a header with Department (Front Office, Housekeeping, F&B or Kitchen) and Week (start date). Each row is an employee: Employee, Position (receptionist, GRE, room attendant, floor supervisor, steward, commis, CDP and so on), then Mon to Sun. Each day cell takes a shift code: M for morning 07:00 to 16:00, A for afternoon 15:00 to 24:00, N for night 23:00 to 08:00, B for a split shift (two blocks, typically 07:00 to 11:00 and 18:00 to 23:00), and OFF for the weekly off.
After Sunday, a Hours column adds the scheduled hours for the week using a lookup of each code's duration from the Departments sheet; a nine-hour M and A, a nine-hour N (with a one-hour break), and a nine-hour split give 45 hours for five duties, 54 for six. A second column flags anyone over 48 hours. Below the staff rows, a Scheduled row counts staff per shift per day, a Required row holds your target, and a Gap row shows the difference in red where short.
The Departments sheet lists, for each department, the shift codes it uses, their start and end times and paid hours, and a small occupancy table: expected occupancy percentage for the week against required staff for each shift. Housekeeping, for example, might need one room attendant per 14 to 16 rooms occupied, so at 80% occupancy of a 100-room hotel that is 5 to 6 attendants on morning shift.
- Weekly hours: =SUMPRODUCT(COUNTIF(C5:I5, Departments!$A$4:$A$8), Departments!$D$4:$D$8) where column D holds paid hours per code.
- Over-48 flag: =IF(Hours>48,"OT","").
- Scheduled on morning, Monday: =COUNTIF(C5:C30,"M"); Gap: =Required − Scheduled.
- Required headcount for housekeeping: =ROUNDUP(Rooms × Occupancy ÷ Rooms per Attendant, 0).
How to use it week by week
Start on Wednesday or Thursday with the occupancy forecast for the coming week. Enter the occupancy percentage in the Departments sheet; the Required rows for housekeeping and front office update. For F&B and kitchen, set Required by expected covers and any banquet or event bookings rather than room occupancy.
Enter approved leave first, then weekly offs, rotating them so the same people do not always get Saturday and Sunday off, which in a leisure hotel are the busiest days. Fill nights at front office and security-adjacent posts next, then the split shifts in kitchen and F&B, then mornings and afternoons until every Gap cell reads zero. Check the Hours column: anyone over 48 needs either a different pattern or consent to overtime paid at double rate.
Publish by Friday for a Monday start. Print per department and pin it at the department notice board and time office, and share the PDF on the department group. Changes during the week go into the file with a comment, so the roster the time office holds is always the current one. For hotels running 24-hour desks and security, the 24/7 rota guide explains rotation patterns that keep nights fair.
- Keep one workbook per month with four or five weekly tabs so hours can be totalled monthly for payroll.
- Use data validation on day cells restricted to the department's codes from the Departments sheet.
- Mark trainees and casuals with a suffix in Position so headcount counts them but pay does not.
How to customise it for your property
Change the shift times on the Departments sheet to your actual hours; a business hotel's front office often runs 07:00 to 16:00, 14:00 to 23:00 and 22:00 to 07:00, while a resort's F&B may run 06:30 to 15:30 for breakfast and lunch and 16:00 to 01:00 for dinner and bar. Because hours per code are looked up, the Hours column adjusts automatically.
Add codes your departments need: an early housekeeping shift (E, 06:00 to 15:00) for large check-out mornings, a banquet call (BQ) for event days with hours typed in a note, and T for training. For the kitchen, add a second split code if lunch and dinner service require different block lengths; the split shift glossary entry explains how spread-over applies when the two blocks are far apart.
Multi-property groups can add a Property column and consolidate on a summary sheet with COUNTIFS by property, department and shift, which gives the corporate office weekly staffing against occupancy for every unit.
Rules that apply to hotel rosters in India
Hotels and restaurants are covered by the state Shops and Establishments Act, and the four Labour Codes in force since 21 November 2025 set the working-hours frame: 48 hours a week, daily hours and spread-over as notified by the state, overtime at not less than twice the ordinary wage, and a weekly holiday. Most state Acts cap the day at 9 hours with spread-over around 10.5 to 12 hours, which is exactly what a split shift tests, so check your state's spread-over limit before scheduling a 07:00 to 23:00 split.
Women on night duty in hotels are generally permitted with consent, safety measures and transport, subject to state conditions; keep written consent on file. Rest between shifts is a policy matter rather than a fixed statutory number in most states, but an A shift ending at midnight followed by an M shift at 07:00 gives seven hours and should be avoided.
Service charge distribution, tips and F&B incentives do not change the roster but do affect payroll; keep scheduled hours accurate because overtime is computed on wages, and under the Code on Wages allowances beyond 50% of pay are treated as wages for that purpose.
When the Excel roster stops working
The weekly file breaks when housekeeping supervisors change the roster on the floor and HR finds out at payroll, when a banquet is booked on Tuesday and thirty staff have to be re-rostered by phone, when split-shift staff clock the second block late and no one can tell from a paper log, and when the same roster has to be built for four properties every week.
Roster software keeps the department grid but publishes it to every employee's phone, lets staff request swaps that a supervisor approves, warns when someone with approved leave is scheduled, and joins the roster to attendance so that late arrivals for the second block of a split shift are recorded automatically. Attend Mitra's hotel employee attendance software covers shift templates for day, night and split shifts, weekly roster builder with draft and publish, and face or GPS attendance at the property; the hospitality industry page and the restaurant and hotel attendance guide show department-level examples.