The DairyNZ Roster Builder allows farmers to create unique rosters designed around the requirements of individual or multiple farms.
It also acts as a best-policy tool to alert farmers if they are breaching minimum wage payments or if staff members are working for too many hours without breaks.
The new DairyNZ Workplace Action Plan has a number of guidelines around work conditions, including a recommendation for staff to work no more than 50 hours a week, 10 hours a day or four hours without a break.
The Roster Builder will alert farmers if they roster any staff members in a way that breaches any of those recommendations.
The tool is there to inform and encourage best-practice, not to police farmers. If farm owners are still working 70-hour weeks themselves, the roster will alert them they are working excess hours, but it doesn’t stop them putting those hours into the roster.
The Roster Builder can create a simple roster in just a few minutes, or can be used to add more detail and even plan leave for staff.
When farmers first log-in they are asked to enter how many dairies are in the business, because it has the capability to roster staff who work across multiple farms.
Farmers can enter how many staff they employ, including how many hours each person is employed to work and what they are paid. That gives them the opportunity to include part-time or casual staff through different stages in the season, as well as full-time employees.
They can then design shifts around the required number of staff and hours needed for certain jobs during the season. For example, they might need two people for every milking, but need only one person during the day for other work onfarm.
The Roster Builder allows farmers to record leave, but doesn’t yet differentiate between sick and annual leave or calculate leave entitlement. That would hopefully be added in the future.
To access the DairyNZ Roster Builder visit https://rosterbuilder.dairynz.co.nz
