Koala Dynamics

What FIFO rosters do to a services business, and how to plan around them

Fly-in fly-out work is one of the genuinely Australian features of the economy. It reshapes the customer base of every town it touches, and it makes demand swing on a roster rather than a season.

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  1. The roster is the calendar

    Two weeks on and one week off, or eight days on and six off, decides when a worker is home, spending money and available to take a call. Local trade and retail demand follows the swing.

  2. Half your customer base is unreachable at any moment

    On site, phones are often restricted and hours are long. Contact windows are narrow and predictable, which is exactly the kind of pattern automation handles well and a human roster handles badly.

  3. Mining towns have two populations

    A residential population that lives there and a FIFO population that does not. They want different services, spend differently and have completely different service expectations.

  4. Camp contracts are all or nothing

    Catering, cleaning, laundry and maintenance at a mine camp are large single contracts. Winning one changes a business overnight, and losing one does the same in reverse.

  5. Prequalification is the real barrier to entry

    Supplying a mine site means safety systems, insurance, inductions and documented procedures well beyond what the headcount would suggest. Most small suppliers fail here rather than on price.

  6. Shutdowns concentrate a year of work into weeks

    Planned maintenance shutdowns pull in enormous contractor numbers for short windows. Scheduling, inductions and invoicing all spike at once.

  7. Commodity prices move the whole town

    When iron ore or coal moves, hiring and local spending follow within months. Businesses in Karratha, Port Hedland or Mackay are effectively exposed to a commodity price whether they sell into mining or not.

  8. Housing and staffing are linked problems

    In FIFO towns, hiring locally means solving accommodation. That is why retention matters more here than recruitment, and why anything reducing workload per head has outsized value.

  9. The automation that actually fits

    After-hours answering that works when the workforce is on shift, booking systems that understand a roster cycle, and document handling that keeps prequalification current without a person chasing it.

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