Self Scheduling. Does it exist?

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If you all wouldn't mind, I'm looking for feedback on how your floor/unit handles scheduling. Usually there are guidelines like so many off-shifts, weekends, holidays, etc but what beyond that? Do you put in your schedule or does your manager? If you write your own schedule, is it honored or are changes made? If changes are made, does your manager let you know ahead of time or try and negotiate with you (work an extra NOC shift and have a weekend off). Thanks for your input.

Specializes in ICU, telemetry, LTAC.

My unit self-schedules. We have two or three weeks to fill in the upcoming schedule with what we would like. Then the director will ask us during that time if there are problems, and if something's in need of fixing the parties just work it out. I like it so far. The fun part is yet to come, as I don't know my opposite's preferences for holidays. Ah well, I didn't become a nurse to stay home every christmas! ;)

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Specializes in Tele, ICU, ER.

Our unit used to do self-scheduling, but because some folks just didn't cooperate with meeting the requirements (weekends, holidays, being inflexible), they took it away.

Now, I rarely get more than 2 nights in a row off, am often scheduled with the one on, one off, two on, one off, one on... you get the picture. This I fight tooth and nail - no night shift person can do that for any length of time.

Hate the scheduling situation now - it's exhausting. When we self-scheduled (and weren't quite so short staffed), my schedule alternated every other week (regarding which nights worked) but it was a regular thing and I always knew in advance which days i'd be working. Not anymore - now it's an exhausting crapshoot.

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Now, I rarely get more than 2 nights in a row off, am often scheduled with the one on, one off, two on, one off, one on... you get the picture. This I fight tooth and nail - no night shift person can do that for any length of time.
That one-on, one-off crap will wear you down very fast on nights. I complained and complained about that, only to be told by my manager "well the nurses on day shift appreciate having a day off between shifts".

*sigh*

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This is why I asked the question. I am also in a situation where we used to do self scheduling and it really worked well. If you could show some flexibility and shift to where the needs were, you'd negotiate with the scheduler and pretty much know what you were working far ahead of time. Now, I'm not sure if it's that some staff can't cooperate or my NM has serious control issues ( probably both) but now we put in our schedules and the NM makes changes at a whim and what we end up with is a crap shoot. This to me is not self scheduling and I have been unsuccessful in trying to convince the NM that self scheduling is such a huge benefit. I guess I'm just venting but I think it's disingenuous to tell interviewees that we have self scheduling. It sounds like many places have the same problem I do in that the privledge has been yanked due to lack of cooperation.

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The reason I wanted some numbers is because our unit is thinking of going to this. I've only heard input from people who worked smallish units though; with

Our other option is set scheduling. Which could be difficult for those in school, with classes changing every semester (or more frequently, with clinicals).

I dont' know, I know there is no way everyone is going to be happy. I don't really have an opinion one way or another, as long as there isn't this one day on, one day off crap for nights. THAT isn't going to fly, and I guarantee we would all leave en mass if they started that. That, or we'd just all trade around so that we'd have the schedule that we needed. But we shouldn't have to do that.

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Specializes in Cardiology.

Both my nursing jobs involved self scheduling. I have no clue how many staff members... first was a 50 bed tele unit where we each took 6 pts on average. I'd say that was a large unit? My current unit is a 20 bed cardiac pcu where we take 4 pts each. It worked out fine at both places. Mgmt would have to tweak it a little to get every shift covered, but all in all you got what you signed up for.

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Specializes in Oncology.

I have what we call "self scheduling" on my unit. At times it works and other times it doesnt. In a month (4 weeks), the conditions we have to follow are: we work 13 shifts total a month. work 3 weekend days (Sat and Sun) and 2 Fridays a month. We are also allowed 6 request days off, however, they arent a guaranteed. Again, like everyone has mentioned before, the need is for the unit.

What I dont like, (at least right now) is that they dont always honor or ask what you prefer. For example, I dont do well with three days on. I simply get really cranky. LOL. I have never scheduled myself for a three day. I have never said anything before when I have been scheduled for a three day because it was only once a schedule. I can live with that. But this schedule I have three of them!!!!! :angryfire

AND what stinks is that my schedule ALWAYS comes out at the last minute, so there is very little room or chance to change it. And when I say last minute, it is last minute. I put my schedule in a month ago and it just came out on Monday. This new schedule starts on Sunday 7/8. Its hard to plan your month, when the schedule comes out so late. We all have complained about it, but our nurse manager doesnt seem to care or change it. Sorry for the rant, its just very frustrating.

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Specializes in Telemetry, Nursery, Post-Partum.

I have done self-scheduling on 2 different units now. It works well, to a certain point. I think the biggest problems I have seen with this is lack of flexibility with the shifts people are willing to work. There are a certain number of nurses needed per shift, per day...and on my old unit, nurses would just keep adding there names to shifts even after they were totally full. Beyond full even, there were times when 8-9 nurses would sign up for a shift that only 5-6 nurses were needed on! You have to wonder what the last person to sign up is thinking, when they see such an abundance of names ahead of theirs, and no room for more names! And every scheduling period we (the schedule was reviewed and basically done by a scheduling committee, the manager would help to "mediate" conflicts but she didn't have an active role in doing the schedule) would have to remind nurses to work together, contact each other to try to switch shifts, etc. We would constantly be calling and emailing people asking them to switch around...it was hard to get people to call back and then heaven forbid we actually ask them to change. My coworker and I basically told everyone we would try to work with people, we would try to only change their schedule only once or twice in a 6 week period, and I would always attempt to ask about conflicts, etc...but cooperation was hard for some. We had weekend requirements, in writing, that people just wouldn't adhere to on their own...I even had one nurse say to me, "I won't voluntarily work a Sunday, if you want me to work it, you will have to change my schedule". What??? Wouldn't you want to pick the day you are working (we only asked for one Sunday a month!)? Its frustrating. I'm glad I don't have to deal with that now, no more scheduling duties for me!

Anyway...self-scheduling can work, if people are willing to assume responsibility to reviewing the schedule in progress, and see if there are changes they can make to help the unit. For example, if you are signed up for a shift with 7 other people, but only 5 are needed and there's another shift that week with only 4...if you can move to that shift with 4 without disturbing important plans, do it!

Another essential component to self-scheduling is enough of the right mix of staff. My current unit is over flowing with PRN nurses, but our full-time and part-time nurses are a little low. Its fine during the school year, when these nurses are more likely to work close to full-time hours, but during the summer it stinks! The PRNs will frequently just work their minimum requirement so that they can have more time with friends and family (who can blame them?) and we don't have enough FT and PT to pick up the slack. I'm not sure how our NM ended up with staffing ratios like we have, its not good at all.

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Our unit has 90+ nurses. We have a weekend program and casual people. What we used to do is put our preferred schedules into a computerized system. Then we had a set day where our scheduler sat down with the schedule and each nurse would negotiate with the scheduler, one by one either in person, on the phone or other means. She would say something like, "i have too many people on Friday and really need someone on Tuesday, could you switch". Sometimes she'd let me out of an off shift if I was flexible and she could make the adjustment. It was like a barter system, I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine. If you didn't put your schedule in, or if you didn't make yourself available on the barter day, you get what you get. I thought this was a beautiful set up. We knew what our schedule was ahead of time, could make appointments and plan for things. The problem came up after years of doing this where some people would just not be flexible. They wanted to put in their dream schedule, not abide by weekend or off shift requirement and even started complaining about the scheduler playing favorites. She probably did play favorites...to the flexible people. Finally our NM got sick of it. We still get to put in our schedules but they will change according to unit needs and that's it.

So anyway, I so miss my self scheduling. It can be done with big units!

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Our entire facility is self-scheduling. It is a 150 bed nursing hime. We have over 100 people in our nursing staff if you include the PRN people. It works well for the most part. We have just implemented it within the past couple of months so of course there is some kinks at times but they are getting worked out.

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Specializes in Neuroscience ICU, CNRN, SCRN.

We self-schedule in 6 week blocks; the "draft" for the upcoming 6 weeks usually comes out several weeks before the current schedule ends. For instance, our current schedule goes from 6/27 thru 8/7; the draft out now is for 8/8 thru 9/18. It will be collected July 12 and then the "Final draft" will be posted about a week before it goes into effect. We mark the draft with the days we want to work, noting any time off we need to schedule and submit a PTO request form to substantiate that day(s) off (vacation, Dr. appts, etc.) We have a scheduling committee (a couple of our unit's RNs) that balances the days with the number of nurses needed to work, submit that to our NM, and then its pretty much carved in stone. However, our NM is usually flexible if you can get another full time (not PRN) RN to do a 1 to 1 switch of days. The self scheduling has seemed to work, and we usually have enough PRN RNs to balance it out. However, its seems as if the last few weeks we've worked short; but I think its just because its summer vacation time. I hope so!

We work every 3rd weekend, so those days are automatically filled in on the draft. We also rotate the winter holidays (Thanksgiving day 1st yr, Christmas day the 2nd yr, New Years day the 3rd year, etc. Our hospital doesn't recognize Easter as holiday.) The bad thing about every 3rd weekend is that this last Christmas was my year to work, and since Christmas fell on the Monday after MY weekend, I was there (as well as my regular weekend co-workers) 3 days in a row. None of us had much of a "Christmas" holiday, and I know it was especially hard on those with younger children at home. Plus, it seems like every 3 day weekend or other holiday falls on my weekend - I worked MLK, Jr. weekend, St. Patrick's day weekend, Easter weekend, Memorial day weekend, and am scheduled for Labor Day weekend too. Plus I ended up working 4th of July too (I didn't sign up for that day, but I guess no one else did either; and I didn't specifically request if off)!

I work on a 39 bed MedSurg unit; not sure how many actual RNs we have, since alot of them are PRN. We are split between 2 floors so when we are full (almost always!) we usually have 9 or 10 nurses total and one Team Leader (charge RN - she doesn't take patients).

The last hospital I worked at used self-scheduling also, but we had to work every other weekend, and the NM did the November & December schedules since they had a problem with the holidays in years past, and many of the RNs on that unit had been there for 15 or 20 years and felt none of them should have to work Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Years! I like the every 3rd weekend much better.

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We self-schedule on the unit I work on, surgical.

Day RN's work every other weekend, all holidays are rotated for all shifts .

Night RN's have to work a combination of 3 Fri/Sat shifts.

As long as the shifts are covered our managers leave the schedule as is. If holes need to be filled they will rearrange as needed. We have preset ways to request off for shifts we absolutely need off and those are respected by management.

It works well for our unit.

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