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Discussion

How does your unit do vacations?

Hello! So here's the run-down. I work in a community hospital in a Maternal Child Health unit. As a unit, we staff labor and delivery (including C-sections in our own OR), post-partum, NICU, pediatrics, an after-hours pediatric urgent care program, and an epilepsy monitoring unit that is open 1 week each month (don't ask how that got added to our unit's responsibilities). Staff is cross trained, although it varies by person. For example, I do everything but NICU at this time. Others only do post-partum and pediatrics, etc.

So we are trying to come up with a way to do vacation that is fair. We self-schedule in 4 week blocks that includes all necessary skills needed in a shift on a first come basis. Our summer schedule, essentially Memorial Day through Labor Day, is done in 4 week blocks and comes out in early April, so we plan our summers out early. We have had issues in the past with our NM not approving vacations in a timely manner. Recently we have had problems with people requesting time off who didn't end up with enough vacation time to cover. We are non-union and were told by HR that seniority cannot be used. Full-time employees are given a bank of Paid Holiday hours (82.5 hours) in February but per NM we cannot use any until 2 weeks before Memorial Day. This holiday time is in addition to sick time and vacation time, which both accrue at different rates depending on length of time at the facility.

My question is-what are suggestions for making time off requests fair? Summer is of course a prime vacation time, and as I said above our summer schedule is done very early. We have people that have tons of vacation time and others who use every minute of time as they get it. Do it on a first-come, first-served basis? Based on who has time to use and who doesn't? What is a way to make it fair for everyone? Thanks!!!!

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    • Featured Replies

    • Admin

    Wow, HR said you can't go by seniority? Isn't that something better left up to individual units to decide? Each unit in my facility has its own staffing bylaws. In my department, all requests other than the Memorial Day-Labor Day summer period and the weeks of Thanksgiving and Christmas are first come, first served (although there may be requests denied if there are too many asking to be off). When we get to summer time off, then it is done by seniority. The staff is divided into groups: the first group (most senior) has a week to submit when they'd like to be off. Up to 3 may be off at a time. Within that group, it's first come first served, so if 4 people want the same week off, then the last to submit is the one who is denied. If someone forgets to send in their request during that week, then they must wait until all of the other groups have had their chance to request.

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    • Experts

    I'm not 100% sure how vacations are handled. What I have seen is that for the most part, seniority gives one some priority but doesn't guarantee they'll get exactly what they ask for (they can and do get told "No"). And the earlier a vacation request is filed, the chances of getting it approved are better.

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    Summer vacation (memorial day thru labor day) is prime time and thus goes by seniority; 2 people are allowed vacation on the same week. Anything outside of summer vacation goes by first come first serve, oh and if your vacation falls on your assigned weekend you have to find coverage.

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    Ours is first come, first served ("FCFS"). I can't remember offhand as my FTE is too small for benefits...... but there is a max number who can be off at once. Also being a level 1 trauma unit, summer is typically the busiest time; therefore, we're allowed to take a maximum of 2 weeks during summer -- even if we have months of PTO accrued.

    I think you need to approach this systematically, so staff can have a reasonable degree of expectation. Say a staff member is planning a big trip; arrangements are made months in advance. With FCFS, aff members can easily tell by looking if the time block is available or not, and plan accordingly. With your suggestion of who is most likely to have enough PTO, someone taking a big trip WILL BE planning in advance. It's not possible to make arrangements only after the schedule is posted. So say an RN is planning two weeks on...Santorini :) with her family. She makes airplane and hotel reservations, because she has to, but then only finds out when the schedule is posted that her request was denied -- other nurses had more PTO than she did (info she is not privy to, unlike seniority or a master vaca list.) So then she has to choose between letting down her family by cancelling the trip, or go on the trip that was planned months ago and conveniently get "sick."

    I'm not sure how others feel, but when I had PTO that was my earned benefit, and no way in hades would I cancel plans of that size. With our system, it's immediately clear if a potential block of time is available or not. Therefore, I know that I either would have the time off, or if unavailable I would simply not book a trip that week.

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    We go by seniority.

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    First come/first serve. BUT we RNs do work together to see who is wanting to take time off when and work it out as much as possible BEFORE ever submitting requests. It's worked well for us and usually more than fair.

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