Rostering can make or break a team. Good rostering and a team will feel loved, valued and will cultivate an environment where people are prepared to go the extra mile if needed. And poor rostering can do the opposite leaving people feeling devalued, annoyed and not wanting to be involved at all. You’ll watch as the team shrinks and every ask is seemingly too much.

In a nutshell rostering is one of the key factors in seeing a team be healthy and grow. So just how does one approach this lost and dying art form?

Rosters that fosters team growth

1. Contact everyone in your team.
2. Ask for their availability and desired involvement.
3. Explain the process of rostering and explain how they can do block-outs for unavailability and that you’d appreciate if they could let you know personally as well. This helps a team feel small and personal. Sometimes for the first run of a new team, you can tell individuals you will do up a draft roster for them to have a look at and get back to you before you publish it. (This is helpful for a new team as it’s an opportunity for you to gain trust and mutual respect).
4. Do the draft roster aiming to take everyone’s availabilities into consideration. Where this is not possible be ready to explain why it wasn’t possible this time and seek to have a solution ready so that you are working toward having everyone’s desired availabilities meet for the following roster. This explanation helps build trust and lets people know they are being heard and that you care.
5. Contact the team individually again to share the roster and ask for their input: ‘is when I have put you on, ok? any changes needed?”
6. Make amendments
7. Send out your first official roster to the team with no surprises.

Yes, this process a while to set up initially but you will save time long term. Scrambling to fill declines each week takes much longer overall.  By following the process above once trust and connection is built then the process is quicker as time goes on as the culture has been set from the start.

You can maintain the culture by reminding people when they pull out last minute that there is a knock-on effect (your time and others time) and it would be much appreciated if they could put in block-outs or whatever the unavailability system you use is.

The alternative happens to this investment in time happens too often whereby individuals are not taken into consideration and the team leader organises a roster randomly, send it out and the team members instantly feel that they are not a valued member of the team. In some cases, the team may not even know who to talk to about their roster if any changes need to be made.

Warning signs that the rostering system is slipping:

• Declines
• Consistant unavailability (have you chatted to them- perhaps there is a sumple solution eg rostering that person on with a friend or family member with transport or rostering them on the alternate week to a work shift. Simply asking the question starting with.
• No-shows: Perhaps their email address has changed, the roster if going to their junk mail, or they have no internet? Don’t assume anything.
• People not willing to stretch or adapt when needed. In a healthy team people will know they are valued when you do your best as a leader to give them time off when they need it, this should be reciprocated when others need time off and usually, people are happy to do a bit of a stretch to help the team out. It doesn’t hurt to double-check if someone is unavailable, often a small change eg taking next week off instead of this week, or taking the morning off instead of the night, or being able to leave early may enable them to fill a position- it all comes back to personal communication.

Rosters should feel personal. When a team receives a roster they should feel a sense of ‘this person is rostering me for a position that they have thought through.’

How do you make a roster?

1. Decide how you want to do the roster (it can be good to have a few options: old school paper version, online via a set site, sms group message, fb messenger, What’s App or and online rostering system like Planning Center.)
2. Talk to each person BEFORE you roster them about their availability and preference for roles.
3. Communicate with them about when they will be rostered BEFORE you put them on and explain that you will send off the roster soon (this is to avoid putting a roster up and then having each person say they can’t do that day. You want to create a bit of momentum and success as you start out. It is hard work in the beginning but it will pay off I promise.
4. Send out the roster with a bit of a blurb with a personal note/ sentence.
5. Check with each person that they can see it.
6. Repeat this process for the next one to two rostering periods then move to phase two: Put up the roster then send a text saying that it is up and for them to check it and let you know if there is any trouble.
7. Phase three: when roster seems like it is working you can stop checking that people are available before and after rostering the team.

*One of the worst things you can do when trying to build a team is to bulldoze ahead and roster people or add them to an online team without speaking to them first. Talking to them first will communicate respect, value and it will allow the person to expect your roster notification that they have been added to a team rather than being on the back foot wondering why they know nothing about what has happened. You’d be surprised how often this happens.