Crew no-shows in labour hire and traffic control: how to stop them

The most reliable way to cut crew no-shows is to stop assuming people will turn up and make them say so the night before. A worker who hasn't confirmed by a set time is treated as a gap, and a standby worker is offered the job while there is still time to fill it. Reminders on their own don't do it: in a trial of 42,000 hourly workers, none of five reminder messages changed show-up rates.

Everything below is about finding the gap early and filling it fast. The no-show itself is never fully preventable. The 6am surprise is.

How common are crew no-shows, and what do they cost?

In one large US trial of hourly workers, people missed 8% of shifts with no reminders at all. The Finsights Guide study, run with scheduling app Homebase, covered over 608,000 shifts across 44 days, and the no-reminder control group was on time for 74% of shifts, late for 18% and missed 8% (Finsights Guide). That's a US hourly workforce, not Australian road crews, so use it as a rough sense of scale.

We couldn't find a published Australian figure for what one no-show costs a traffic control or labour hire business. The closest number is general absenteeism: the Ai Group's 2015 survey estimated it directly costs organisations about $578 per employee per absent day (Petroleum Australia). That covers all industries and all kinds of absence, so it understates a missed shift on a live job.

On site the cost is easy to describe, even if it's hard to put a figure on:

• The rest of the crew waits, or works short.
• The client or head contractor is waiting for a start.
• Someone gets pulled from another job, which moves the gap rather than closing it.
• Replacing a traffic controller isn't a matter of grabbing anyone. In NSW, "workers must have a SafeWork NSW Traffic Control Work Training (TCWT) Card if they work in traffic control" (SafeWork NSW).

Supply is tight too. In 2019 South West TAFE reported more than 600 traffic controller vacancies across Victoria, and a local operator said it often struggles to find well-trained staff quickly when a larger project comes in (South West TAFE). That's dated, but it explains why replacing someone at short notice is hard.

Do reminders stop no-shows?

On their own, probably not. In the Homebase trial, workers were sent reminders by email and push notification, the night before or an hour before. "None of our five experimental conditions impacted on-time rates or show-up rates" (Finsights Guide). The authors suggested forgetting may not be the main problem, and that reminders may even prompt more last-minute cancellations.

A reminder is a message that goes one way. A confirmation needs a reply. That's a different thing, and the trial didn't test it. We haven't found published evidence that confirmation requests reduce worker no-shows. What they do reliably is change when you find out. A missing reply at 6pm gives you a night to fix it. A missing worker at 6am gives you a crew standing around.

So the aim isn't to nag people into showing up. It's to know early who isn't.

What does a daily crew confirmation system look like?

It's a short routine run every working day, by text, with a hard cut-off. A workable version:

1. Send the job to every worker the evening before. What the job is, where to be, what time, who's running it, and who to call. One message, no hunting through a roster.
2. Ask for a reply. "Reply YES to confirm" is enough. A thumbs-up on a group chat isn't, because you can't tell who didn't answer.
3. Set a cut-off. Say 7pm or 8pm. Anyone who hasn't replied by then is a gap, not "probably fine".
4. Chase once, then escalate. One automatic follow-up, then a phone call from a person if they stay silent.
5. Check in again in the morning. A short "are you on your way" catches the overnight changes.
6. Fill the gap immediately. The moment someone drops out or goes quiet, offer the role to the standby pool and keep going until it's covered.
7. Log every outcome. Who confirmed, who didn't, who was replaced. After a month you'll see who the repeat problems are.

How do you run a standby pool?

Keep a small group of qualified, available people on call, and size it from your own bad days. There's no published rule. Look back over the last few months, find the days you came up shortest, and keep at least that many people ready.

Two things make a standby pool work:

• They hold the right tickets. A standby traffic controller in NSW needs the TCWT card, and your clients will have their own site requirements. A standby who can't legally take the role isn't a standby.
• They know the offer is real. If they're asked at 5:45am with no context, they'll say no. Tell them what the job is, where, and for how long, in the same message as the offer.

What should you automate, and what should stay with a person?

Automate the routine and the speed. Keep people for judgement and for the awkward conversations.

Automate:

• Sending the daily job details to every worker.
• Asking for confirmation and chasing the ones who haven't replied.
• Flagging gaps to whoever is rostering, with the role and the time.
• Offering a dropped role to whoever is available, and re-sending the new job details once it's filled.
• Keeping the log.

Keep with a person:

• Deciding who is qualified for which site.
• Calling someone who has gone quiet twice.
• Telling a client about a late start.
• The conversation with someone who keeps not turning up. Software can show the pattern, but it can't have that talk for you.

How does Kymora handle crew coordination?

Kymora runs the daily coordination crews depend on, for traffic control, labour hire and large contracting companies. In Kymora's own description of the service:

• Every worker confirms they're showing up before the day starts.
• A no-show's role is automatically reassigned to whoever is available.
• Every worker is told what they're doing and where to be, each day.

Kymora hasn't published client results for this service, so this guide makes no claims about outcomes. To talk through whether it fits your crew, get in touch.

Know a traffic control, labour hire or large contracting company that has this problem? Kymora pays up to $5,000 for the introduction once they sign up and pay their first bill. The terms are in the referral fees guide and on kymora.ai/refer.