Beyond the Fill-in-the-Blanks Roster: What Hospitality Can Learn from Airline Rostering

 

Steele at a Glance | by Steele Service Co.

Beyond the Fill-in-the-Blanks Roster: What Hospitality Can Learn from Airline Rostering

In our last edition of Steele at a Glance, Ben explored how independent venues could collaborate through shared talent pools and joint training networks—tackling hospitality’s labor challenge by giving great staff access to more hours and clearer career pathways across venues. Building on that idea of rethinking our approach to people power, this week I want to dive into what happens within our own venue walls when we fundamentally change how we construct our rosters.

If you’ve ever managed a team in a club or hotel, you’re familiar with the weekly puzzle. The roster opens, the blank shifts stare back at you, and the goal quickly becomes plug-and-play: put a name in every slot until the floor is covered.

It gets the job done, but it treats rostering as a purely administrative task rather than what it truly is: a core driver of culture, productivity, and staff retention.

• Ask yourself: When you look at your completed roster, do you see a strategy for team engagement, or just a filled grid?

To build a team that shows up energized and invested, we need to shift from a system that assigns shifts based on filling operational gaps to one that works with our people. A great place to look for inspiration? The aviation industry.

The Airline Approach: Bidding Over Assigning

For decades, commercial airlines have used Preferential Bidding Systems (PBS). Instead of a manager dictating every flight leg, flight crews bid on preferred routes, schedules, and days off. An automated system then optimizes the schedule by matching operational needs against employee preferences.

While aviation operates on a different scale, the underlying philosophy applies directly to hospitality: give staff control over their time, and they will take ownership of their work.

In clubs and hotels, we often rely on standard "availability forms"—a passive system where staff tell us when they can’t work. But true engagement happens when we move beyond availability to preference: knowing when staff want to work, what roles they want to step into, and how they like to balance their lives.

• To consider: Are your availability forms giving you a true picture of when your team wants to thrive, or just the minimum hours they feel forced to accept?

From Theory to Practice: What Happens When You Truly Listen

When I took up a post as a Multi-Site Operations Manager, I decided to test this human-first philosophy directly. I made it a priority to interview every single team member and manager across the venues.

I wanted to understand what actually mattered to them:

• What was important to them personally and professionally?

• What was working in their current schedules, and what wasn't?

• How did they like to be managed, and how did they prefer to be communicated with?

• What was their ideal working setup, and how could I support them to thrive?

• A challenge for leadership: When was the last time you asked your team how they want to be managed, rather than expecting them to adapt to your management style?

Sitting down with everyone revealed consistent themes across the board. These insights allowed us to make strategic operational changes that weren't just viable for the business, but made a genuinely positive impact on our people's daily lives.

The results were remarkable. Absenteeism dropped dramatically, shift attendance skyrocketed, and the overall quality of work improved across all sites. Our people were happier—and when your team is happy, their performance naturally follows.

Moving from Reactive to Empowerment-First Rostering

What does applying this philosophy look like on the venue floor?

1. Shift Selection Over Assignment: Where possible, publish baseline operational needs and allow staff to select shifts that fit their lifestyle, rather than simply dictating who works when.

2. Extended Roster Horizons: Opening rosters weeks or even months in advance gives staff the foresight to plan their lives. When people can organize study, childcare, or social commitments without fighting for leave, conflict drops.

3. Deepening the Conversation: Like those 1-on-1 conversations proved to me, knowing your team means understanding individual drivers. Aligning shifts with personal and professional goals changes the dynamic from "doing as they're told" to a collaborative partnership.

• Reflect: What would happen to your team's stress levels if they knew their schedule two months in advance instead of two days?

Navigating Operational Realities

Of course, hospitality isn't a free-for-all. Peak Friday night rushes, major event days, and specific skill-set requirements mean we can’t offer 100% self-selection all the time. Operational requirements will always set the boundary lines.

The power lies in shifting the baseline: treat strict shift assignment as the exception rather than the rule. When leadership actively tries to accommodate staff preferences first, employees are far more willing to step up and cover those tough, non-negotiable operational gaps when required.

• The balance test: Are you enforcing fixed shifts out of genuine operational necessity, or simply because "that's how we've always done it"?

The Business Bottom Line

Rostering will always require balance, but when you invest time in really knowing your people and giving them agency over their working life, everybody wins:

• Reduced Absenteeism & Turnaround: Unplanned leave drops when schedules reflect people's real lives.

• Higher Productivity: A team working shifts aligned with their preferred energy levels naturally delivers better service.

• Stronger Culture: Respecting your team’s time builds trust and long-term loyalty in an industry where retention is a constant challenge.

Thanks for taking the time to join us at Steele at a Glance. Keep smiling, keep serving, keep crafting those amazing moments for your customers and let's keep finding smarter ways to work together!

Toby