No-show

A no-show is when someone rostered to work a shift doesn't turn up and gave the business no notice beforehand. It's different from a cancellation with notice, where the person tells the business in advance that they can't make it.

How it's treated

On paper the two look alike: the shift ends up a person short. In practice they cost very different amounts:

• A cancellation with notice gives the business time to react. It can call on a standby pool, adjust the roster, or accept a smaller crew for that shift.
• A no-show is discovered at or after the shift's start, when there's little or no time left to fill the seat. The business is short-staffed right then, often in the middle of service.

Because of that difference, most reliability systems weight no-shows more heavily than notified cancellations when they score a worker's record.

The cost of a no-show

No-shows are the most expensive failure in a shift-based roster. Nobody can predict them or plan around them, and they cut the number of people on the floor at the moment they're needed most. Reducing them, through reminders, clear confirmation steps and fast standby recovery when they do happen, is one of the main jobs of any rostering system.

Note: whether a no-show affects pay, disciplinary process or ongoing engagement depends on the employment relationship and the law that applies. Check current NZ or AU guidance rather than treating this as advice.

In Chronomancer

Chronomancer's reliability formula penalises no-shows on their own, and more heavily than cancellations given with notice. On the night, a no-show's seat can be offered to the standby list with one tap (dropout recovery), through a one-time claim link.