New Dayforce research links rostering complexity to burnout and turnover risk across frontline teams in Australia and New Zealand
Frontline teams across Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) are absorbing more scheduling pressure than most workplace systems were built to handle.
New research from workforce management platform Dayforce has found that 89% of frontline workers and managers say shift-level issues are affecting their wellbeing, while 67% have considered leaving their job as a result — figures that point to a retention problem sitting underneath what often looks, on the surface, like a rostering inconvenience.
Dayforce will unpack the findings in a webinar on 5 August 2026 at 11:00am AEST, presented virtually to audiences. Registration is open via the session's Zoom registration page.
Why shift-level friction has become a retention problem
For organisations built around rostering, retail, healthcare and other service-based operations, the research suggests the issue extends well beyond the roster itself.
According to Dayforce, 75% of executives and managers surveyed across ANZ rely on manual workarounds to keep shifts covered, and 67% said shift-level issues create compliance risk at least some of the time.
In workforce environments already governed by complex award structures, that combination of manual patchwork and compliance exposure compounds quickly – a dynamic HR leaders have flagged as a persistent underpayment and administrative risk in the broader Australian workforce policy conversation.
Award classification and rostering compliance obligations in Australia are set out under the modern awards system, which the Fair Work Ombudsman outlines in detail for employers – a framework that becomes harder to apply consistently when last-minute changes are tracked manually rather than in a connected system.
The wellbeing dimension is where Dayforce's research points to a less obvious cost. Persistent shift-level disruption is increasingly being treated as a workplace psychosocial hazard, an area Safe Work Australia has been progressively formalising guidance around as employers are required to manage risks to psychological, not just physical, safety.
What high-performing organisations are doing differently
Dayforce's research points to a different approach among organisations managing this pressure more effectively: rather than leaving managers to solve staffing gaps on their own, they're connecting rostering, time, pay and HR data into a single real-time view.
That visibility lets managers weigh the cost and compliance implications of a staffing decision before making it, even across multiple sites or overlapping award conditions – echoing the broader shift toward treating the roster as the starting point for productivity gains rather than an administrative afterthought.
Dayforce's research also found that organisations adapting to workforce changes 74% faster are significantly more likely to have frontline employees who view workplace technology as an enabler rather than a burden – a distinction the webinar will explore alongside how tools like dynamic rostering, skills-based shift matching and built-in compliance checks reduce the manual load on managers, an approach consistent with broader findings on how workforce management software strengthens day-to-day efficiency.
What the session will cover
The webinar will examine:
- What shift-level challenges are costing frontline organisations
- How workforce complexity affects retention, manager effectiveness and performance
- Why manager experience and manager self-service are critical to improving efficiency
- What high-performing organisations are doing differently to reduce workforce friction
Dayforce's research suggests the disruption isn't seen as inevitable by the people managing it day to day: 75% of surveyed executives and managers said shift-level disruption is at least moderately avoidable when they have access to better real-time information.
For ANZ organisations weighing where to focus limited HR resources this year, that finding is the session's central argument — that frontline pressure is a solvable visibility problem, not a fixed cost of doing business.
Registration for the 5 August session is available through the event's Zoom sign-up.
