Scheduling conflicts

[JackFrostRN]

Hey all, first time post here. Great forum! Anyways, I have recently entered a quasi-managerial role in the unit i work at, and one of my new responsibilities is to help creating the monthly schedule for the staff. In my short time with this new role it is already becoming a bit of a headache. I was hoping some of you can provide input on how your department works as far as scheduling. Here are some questions I have:

1. Does your department do self-scheduling? Or does the manager pick everyone's schedule?

2. What kinds of requirements does your department have? For instance, ours requires nurses to work 4 weekend days per schedule, and alternating holidays.

3. Our department uses a spreadsheet for the schedule, and the nurses come around and write in their requests. Once approved, the schedule is photocopied and distributed. Does your facility do something different?

4. In general, are your requests granted? Or does everyone's days get moved around a lot?

5. How does the staff perceive the whole scheduling process? Any tips for the manager who approves the schedule?

Thanks for any input you can offer.

[BlueDevil,DNP, DNP, RN]

The most successful schedule I ever wrote was a repeating spreadsheet type thing. It covered all the needs with the FTEs we had allotted. For instance, say for simplicity you have twenty 1.0 FTEs, and ten .75s, and ten .50s and six prns. Half of those are day shift and half are nights, and everyone does 12 hours shifts.

Write a spread sheet using those FTEs that covers either 4 or 6 weeks giving every FTE the required weekend hours, etc. No names, just FTEs. Once you have a pattern established, you just repeat it endlessly, like Pi, lol. It never changes.

Then, the most senior 1.0 FTE day shift person chooses the rotation they like best. Ditto most senior night shift. Then the next most senior, and so forth. Repeat for part timers.

prn people fill in blanks.

The schedule does not change. If you want time off, switch with someone. Cover it yourself. If your day falls on a holiday, tough noogies, it's yours. When someone quit or got fired, that schedule was open, so another employee could transfer into it or we would hire into it. But the track did not change. If the employee wanted to transfer into it, they took it as is. A part timer couldn't take part of a 1.0 FTE track, for instance. Once the schedule was written, it was a thing of beauty man. It was for a 20 bed ICU and included over 100 FTEs full and part time. Once it was done, it was set in bleeping stone, and it stayed that way for the seven years I was there. As far as I know, that is still the way it is done there.

[Ntheboat2]

The manager at my old job let everyone self schedule. It seemed to work out well because everyone knew what was *required* and scheduled themselves for those days. For holidays, we were randomly put on a schedule and those weren't a choice. I never cared which days I worked so I (along with several others) didn't ever fill out the schedule sheet. That way I guess she could schedule the people who cared the way they wanted and use the rest of us who didn't care to fill in the blanks. Some people even preferred to work only on weekends so it made up for the people who didn't.

I never had to make a "nursing schedule" so this is just my inexperienced opinion...but letting people self schedule WITH the understanding that it may not always be accomodated would be easier than dealing with all the "shift change requests" and "time off requests" paper work. I had people ask me to switch schedules a couple of times and they had to fill out a paper, have me sign it, get manager approval, etc. I assume dealing with that on a regular basis as the manager would be more of a pain than trying to make the schedule the way everyone requests.

[JackFrostRN]

BlueDevil, interesting solution! Though I'm afraid of what might happen if we do that in our busy unit. It seems we have so many people who have requests (i.e. XX can't work Mondays, YY can't work Thursdays, etc).

Ntheboat2 - I agree, dealing with change requests can be a bit bothersome. I'm hoping to find a way to minimize them, as well as keeping everyone happy when the schedules are released.

Anyone else?

[mappers]

I worked on a floor that did something very similarly to Blue-Devils. It was awesome because I always knew my schedule. I could schedule Dentist appointments 6 months out with no problems. I rarely ever needed to change days because I could schedule around my work days. This saved up my PTO for vacations because i wasn't having to use it for other stuff. Now the occasional school things came along, but I could usually trade someone. I was willing to trade with others when they needed it, so they would help me when I needed it.

[CVCURN]

We self schedule on my unit. We do 4-week schedules at a time, we must work either a monday or a friday each week unless you work that weekend as those are our busiest days. We work every 3rd weekend and a set holiday rotation that we know 3 years in advance. For each 4-week schedule we must take 1 on-call day and we are allowed to 'X' 2 days. Your X'ed days mean that you cannot work that day no matter what, so if they're rearranging people you won't be slid into that day. All the FTEs go first, and our per diems cant fill in the schedule until the last week before it's picked up. I am the newest RN on the floor and even my days pretty much never get switched around, 2 of my shifts get changed per schedule MAX and we are all happy as pie!

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

we are now doing it electronicallya nd doing self-scheduling. The "rules" that the OP mentioned are built in to the application, so if someone does not make a request that fits the app, then they do not get a schedule of any kind. Also, certifications like BLS, ACLS, etc are part of the parameters. If your card expires your schedule disappears.

[BlueDevil,DNP, DNP, RN]

Oh, we had people that didn't like it when we instituted it. They had the option to adapt or transfer out. They chose to adapt and life went on.

[JackFrostRN]

Interesting info, this has given me some things to think about and to bring up in our next meeting.

classicdame - cn you explain a little more about doing it electronically? does your hospital have its own system or is it provided by a company?

[nangemini]

Our hospital uses electronic self-scheduling. Several months ago I assumed the responsibility of managing the schedule. There is a 1 week sign-up period during which staff fill out their schedule. Prior to the sign-up period, they electronically submit all vacation requests as well as time off. The requests are then reviewed and approved or denied. We only allow 2 persons to be off at a time.

Par levels for staff are set by the computer to balance staffing for each shift. Most of our night staff have chosen to have an automatic recurring schedule that works for them and the unit. If they do not have the required number of hours or weekend shifts the computer will not complete and save their schedule.

After sign-up is completed, I review and determine if any manual shifting of staff needs to occur for skill mix, etc. to cover holidays or simply because we are short-staffed. Days that require a call shift or additional staff are posted for PRN's and staff completion.

Holidays are team rotation, but we are in the process of exploring other options for holidays and low census rotation. We are open to exploring creative ideas for staffing and scheduling that would increase staff satisfaction.

[OnlybyHisgraceRN, ASN, RN]

Where I work it is self scheduling. Every six weeks we sign up, its just a basic chart and we initial what day we want to work.

Day shift is required to work two weekends, one mon. and one fri a month. Nights are required to work one weekend, one monday and one friday.

So far it as worked well. I enjoyed it.

[turnforthenurse, MSN, NP]

We used to do self-scheduling. A blank spreadsheet would be printed and we had to pencil in our days we wanted to work and the days we wanted off. We're required to work at least four weekend shifts/month. We were given a time frame of when we were supposed to pencil in our days and then management would review and approve the schedule.

Now we have set schedules...though I requested mine and it works perfectly. We do not do alternating holidays. We're required to work 2-3 major holidays/year and that's it. Last year I ended up having Thanksgiving & Christmas off. This year I ended up with Thanksgiving off but am working Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I ended up with New Year's Eve/Day off. New Year's falls on my regularly scheduled days but my manager swapped my schedule for that week so that I would have that holiday off.

In general, our requests are almost always granted if we submit them in a timely manner. I have never had any scheduling problems.