Holiday Scheduling

PediRN · Jul 8, 2010

The place I work at observes New years Memorial day, 4th of July, Labor day, Thanksgiving, Christmas as holidays. We work every other holiday, and they rotate each year. So for the holidays you work one year, the next year will be the opposite rotation. By scheduling New years and Memorial day consecutively it all evens out.[/quote']
oooh, I like this....

ChristineN, BSN, RN · Jul 8, 2010

I work at two different hospitals. At the one, Staff is assigned to one winter and one summer holiday on a rotating schedule, so that you only work, say, Christmas, once every 3 years. Typically they are paired as a major and a minor holiday. For example, this year I'm Labor Day and Christmas.

At the other hospital I just pick my 1 winter and 1 summer holiday.

Bill E. Rubin · Jul 8, 2010

We split the "summer" holidays (Memorial Day, 7/4 and Labor Day) from the "winter" holidays (txgiving, xmas, new year's). For the summer holidays, we rank them from 1st to 3rd for the holiday we wish to work.We are assigned one to work based on our choices and our seniority. We are expected to work one summer holiday and the day before or after it.

For the winter holidays, we are split into two groups. One group works xmas and xmas eve and the other works txgiving and new years day and new year's eve. For txgiving, if we work the day or evening shift, we're expected to work the day/evening after, if the night shift, the night before.

Some of the senior staff grouse about the "adjacent" day policy, but I think it's a pretty fair system. Without that policy, if you're a jr staff, and, for example, your family is far away, and you get Thanksgiving off but not the day after, you're screwed from ever being able to spend txgiving with your family.

Bill E. Rubin · Jul 8, 2010

It also means that the jr staff isn't always stuck working xmas eve or new year's eve.

cherrybreeze, ADN, RN · Jul 8, 2010

I heard that type of comment this last winter (from my bosses/schedulers), that the staff without kids and/or husbands should be able to work holidays and pretty much "whenever." Apparently, my single-ness means I don't have family I would like to spend the holidays with?

Ridiculous.

CT Pixie, BSN, RN · Jul 8, 2010

I've often wondered about our holiday "schedule" *rolling eyes*. Upon hire I was told every other holiday you worked and if you worked..say Christmas in 2009 you would have it off in 2010. But looking back at all the holidays I've worked..one right after the other and 2 out of 3 of the major winter and summer holidays I've come to the realization that the "schedule" is what ever holiday the scheduler wants to put you on.

bear_mom · Jul 8, 2010

We have a roatation set up, each nurse works one summer and one winter holiday. Rotations are: Memorial Day and Thanksgiving, 4th and Christmas and Labor Day and New Years. So every three years you rotate through the holidays.

We are changing our schedules around though and decreasing the number of nurses on staff, so I'm not sure how things are going to pan out with our new schedules. Weekends and holidays are going to be an issue - there aren't going to be enough nurses to cover them with our current expectations (ie: 1 1/2 weekends and month and two holidays a year).

Emily

Moogie · Jul 9, 2010

At the health care facility where I work, staff are required to work two out of three major holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years). Last year, I "volunteered" to work Christmas; I was new to the facility so I knew there was no chance of not working it, so I signed up for Christmas Day, as well as New Year's Day. On Monday evening, while working my scheduled shift, the time scheduler made the following statement: "Anyone who doesn't have kids should volunteer to work Christmas." WRONG!! A discussion ensued. I am single, and have no children. However, I do have an immediate family, as well as a sizeable extended family whom I enjoy spending time with during the Christmas Holiday. So, "NO," I will not work every Christmas. The time scheduler walked away, with "her tail between her legs."
How is holiday scheduling done at your place of employment?

That's just ridiculous to say that to an employee. It shouldn't matter if one has children or even if one doesn't celebrate certain holidays. No scheduling person or manager should ever make such an asinine statement to an employee. :mad:

One of my last managers had set the holiday schedule up months before the holidays. There was a rotation so that the employees who worked two out of the three major summer holidays would only work one of the major winter holidays and vice versa. One of the senior nurses whined about not getting to spend Christmas with her family, however, so the manager decided that EVERYONE would work at least some shifts over Christmas and New Years. One nurse got stuck working PMs on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve---but she was off Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Prior to the manager's waffling, I had been scheduled to be off at Christmas but when she changed her mind, I got stuck working one night shift in the middle of a long stretch of time off and couldn't go anywhere because of that one blasted shift.

Did I mention that the manager who set the schedule always got every holiday off? :madface:

caliotter3 · Jul 9, 2010

Moogie

Your comment about how the one whiner made it worse for everyone reminded me of something similar. When I was in the military, I was the shift supervisor. During the holiday season, the military community went on a "holiday" nonessential status for 18 days. Since I made up my shift schedules for the people I supervised, I thought I would do them a big favor. I gathered them together and told them I would schedule them to work 9 days and have 9 days off in a row. They decided who wanted which 9 days and they had to go through proper channels if they wanted to leave the country for leave (we were in Europe). Of course, I told them there had to be absolutely no problems for this to work (because to cover my butt I made up two schedules, the real one, and the one "for show".) Well, you can guess what happened. One genius decided that he was going to get inebriated and not come to work on New Year's Eve. Not only was he unable to work, he created a disturbance in the barracks. You can guess what the First Sergeant had to say to me when he called me into his office. All it ever takes is one to ruin it for all.