Holiday rotations...

[Bec7074]

Just curious as to how holidays are handled on your units as I am very unhappy with the holiday policy for mine and would like to restructure it. We ideally staff 12 RNs (10 minimum) + charge per shift. On nights, All full or part time staff, except those with 10+ years with the organization and weekend only ppl) are required to work EVERY holiday (either the night before or the night of). As my parents live 3 hours away, it makes things very annoying. Day shift is different because they don't have to worry about having enough staff for 2 shifts. Your thoughts would be appreciated!

[edmia, BSN, RN]

I guess we do it by seniority with the regular schedule. There is a block of time when no one can take vacation - from thanksgiving to right after new year. I personally volunteer to work Xmas eve and day and have new year eve and day off. Not Christian, so it really doesn't matter to me.

[Mandychelle79, ASN, RN]

Our recognized holidays are

New Years Day, Martin Luther King Jr Day, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas.

We work every other, with the ability to trade if we want. When we work the holiday we get either the day before or the day after off. Holiday schedule takes priority over weekend. So if you are supposed to have the weekend off but your holiday to work falls on that weekend, you work that day

[Bec7074]

Everyone -thanks for the replies!

Amo -not union. I'm not even sure there are unions for nurses in my state.

I can't do anything about the senior nurses not having to work holidays, as it's the policy of my entire organization. The specifics of the holiday rotations, however are unit-based. The biggest argument I would have to overcome is that the way it is done now, we have guaranteed staffing. If you do some kind of blocks, it leaves holes (which then creates more work for managers and shift coordinators to fill). I did the math. We staff 12 + Charge and in 3 blocks, it's about 9 nurses. My other obstacle is that many of the nurses on our unit Scheduling Committee are older and have local families, so it works out for them. They are the people i need to convince. They just aren't going to buy it if they only have 9 guaranteed nurses per night.

I'm going to think about all the responses and hopefully we can make one work!! Thanks again!!

[wooh, BSN, RN]

There's no good way to do it. Someone will complain about anything you do. The only real solution is to shut down the hospital on holidays, but I doubt that's going to happen.

[JordanRose]

At my former employer, it was suppose to be every other holiday. Never worked that way though. It basically depended on how much your manager liked you. One nurse in our unit had not worked Christmas Day in 7 years. I was getting nailed every other Christmas. I tried to discuss it with the manager, but it went no where.

Like a previous poster stated, there is never a good way to do it. Someone is going to be unhappy, no matter what.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

we have seven holidays and work every other. if you work christmas, you also work christmas eve and boxing day. new year's includes both dec 31 and jan 1. etc. i know years in advance which holidays i'll have off. obviously you won't be seeing out of town family the year you work christmas, but you could go and spend thanksgiving with them. or, as we're doing this year, invite them to come and spend christmas with you.

the other point i wanted to make is that there's nothing magical about december 25. if you want to spend "christmas" with you're family in timbuktu and you're working december 25, why not declare december 14 to be "christmas" and gather the whole family around on that day? i can see that there won't be any new year's eve parties on january 3, but usually that's not a important holiday to folks with families, so those who do want to celebrate don't usually have trouble getting off. especially if they're willing to trade for christmas.

[stillpinay]

How about working the day before a holiday, or working a weekend before a holiday? I 'm having real difficulty understanding the fairness in working a Friday, off Saturday, then working sunday , then off Monday the actual holiday (Memorial). It just doesn't seem to be fair. Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

How about working the day before a holiday, or working a weekend before a holiday? I 'm having real difficulty understanding the fairness in working a Friday, off Saturday, then working sunday , then off Monday the actual holiday (Memorial). It just doesn't seem to be fair. Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated.

Whatever the unit policy, if it's applied equally to everyone then it's fair. If you're getting Memorial Day off, that's great! Have some barbecue for me, because I'll be working!