Self-scheduling

[HURN, BSN, RN]

Hi all, need some advice. A few nurses and myself on a busy surgical unit are displeased with how our scheduling is going. We would really like to adopt self scheduling on our unit as the other units are doing it and it seems to be going well. Our manager is open to the idea but tells us if we want to do it, we'll have to come up with the rules and get the rest of the unit on board. Three of us have decided it's time to move on from this job because things are not going well (staffing issues, scheduling, bad management) but we want to at least try to work something out so everybody can be content at the very least with work. So with all that said, rather than looking for another job I'm willing to try to self-scheduling. What rules would we need to adopt to get this going? I'd appreciate any pointers.

Thanks, Donita

[Katnip, RN]

I would go to the other units and see how they are doing theirs since it can give continuity throughout the hospital. One of the most important things will be to have someone in charge of the schedule on a regular basis.

One hospital where I worked used a "team" system. Team A would be the first to schedule themselves for a particular period then Team B, then Team C. Each scheduling period it would rotate who went first.

No matter how it's done there needs to be a good way to prevent people from erasing others' requests as well.

[HURN, BSN, RN]

Thanks for the quick reply Katnip. Another nurse acutally mentioned breaking it up into teams. I know a nurse on another unit who self-schedules, thanks for the advice!

[PICNICRN, BSN, RN]

We have always self scheduled- we work every 3rd weekend and we place people on their w/e at hire- weekend A,B, or C for instance. Other than that, everyone MUST schedule themselves 4 mondays or fridays per 4 week schedule. We may use 4 "Rs" per scheulde(on days we cannot work). Then, we pencil ourselves in(we usually get about 10 days to work on it)- the Assistant NM puts the counts on the bottom of each day and puts the schedule out again for 1 week and it is up to us to switch ourselves off the "over days" to cover the "under days". If it is not a balanced schedule by the time the ANM gets it back- she moves people and then puts out the schedule.

It seems to be a fair system. I do not hear much complaining about it.

[earthcrosser]

My unit does self scheduling. You're basically required to work 4 weekend (Fri, Sat, Sun) days each schedule (4 weeks long) and then there are rules about holidays - they rotate those so that no one works always on Christmas or whatever. Sometimes managers have to change the days you select, but it seems like for the most part, the managers don't mess too much with the schedule.