Holidays and Time Off

[rn_jr]

How does your OR determine who works a Holiday? Our dept is revisiting how we decide who gets holidays/vacation days off and I'm looking for some input and perhaps a more fair way so that the same people are not getting the same holidays/vacation every year.

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

We consider only six holidays- New Year's, Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. We're divided into 4 groups, so 2 groups work 2 holidays and 2 groups work 1. People pretty much stay in the same group, and the holidays rotate through. IE, work Thanksgiving one year, next year work July 4th and Christmas, next year work NY, etc. For people who end up switching groups, they try to work it out that if you worked the holiday the year before and are slated for that same holiday, you don't have to work it, but may work more than one shift for the weekend.

[maeyken]

We follow our master schedule for all holidays except for Christmas and New Years. For those you work one or the other although some people get both off.

Other holidays (most are Mondays) if you're scheduled towork the weekend, you work the Monday as well.

[OR_RN12345]

We have 2 groups of holidays. "Summer" holidays are Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day. "Winter" ones are Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. We draw numbers twice a year and choose which holiday/shift we want based on those numbers. Often we will work one shift and call for the rest of the weekend if a Monday holiday. If you have a high enough number, you may not end up with a holiday for that season (more staff than holiday slots). Also, if you work Christmas, you are exempt from it for the next 3 years.

[joyful911]

rn_jr,

Our OR has had a staffing shortage for the past 2 yrs. This past yr. our Director chose to make the decision on vacation/Holidays. She put all the Holidays on a sheet of paper, looked at who did the last one of each holiday and started plugging names in, then each yr. everyone moves to the next holiday. The only problem with that was she didn't look carefully at her pairings and some people ended up together that didn't scrub and there was no scrub person. Not all our staff scrub, so we had to make some swaps to have a scrub tech/nurse and a circulator.Now we have hired 3 scrub techs so hopefully the rotations will be OK this yr. We still have the problem where some people put in for the same weeks off every yr. Mainly 4th of July has been a problem. One person has had that week the last 3yrs in a row.. Open to suggestions of what you folks do. thanks, Joyful911

[Goobstress]

Make every one sign up for 1 major holiday and 1 minor and rotate the following year.