Unit Schedules for staff

[special1rn]

Good evening all,

I am looking for information on how your schedule is completed for the unit. We do not have and electronic system. The challenge is the schedule template is put out for the staff to sign up. When pulled by the schedulers for completions more often then not there are days that are completely unbalanced. What they are finding is a lot of nurses wanting to work tues-thurs and mon and fri short. Or folks requesting so many days off essentially they are dictating the schedule they like, which causes restrictions when attempting to balance. Can anyone offer advice for how it is done on their unit? I have given some thought to splitting the unit in to teams. Having team 1 sign up first this month and alternating, with the second team for the month being the priority if balance is needed and again alternating each month. The schedule is taking to much of my time and the scheduling committees time. I have attempted to get feedback/suggestions from the staff, with minimal input. So I am searching for ideas to present to them to see if that gets them involved, and makes the scheduling process easier.

[K+MgSO4, BSN]

Rostering rules helps.

People get to prioritize 3 requests per fortnight. Anything extra they request is given as possible. The split of senior staff vs juniors is known so a senior nurse cannot swap a shift with a grad if that leaves a shift unsafe.

Each staff member fills in a roster preferences form every 6 months. E.g. I have a staff member who cannot work a specific day as she takes her dad for chemotherapy as he can't speak English.

Some level of suck it up is required by both sides.

Rosters are a thankless task. People always complain about them until you sit them down with the binder of notes and setvthem to it. If needs be pull out the binder and ask them to find a solution to the problem they are moaning about.