rotas

[fin54]

Is anyone good at doing rosta's, if so would they be willing to help me to try and make one up as the manager of the home I work in has informed us our duty rota has to change, she has given us one that we don't like and told us to come up with something else or we will be doing the one she has made (which doesn't work anyway)

[twinklytoes]

have done a far few in the past, all in a care setting. whats the problems? whys it not working?

[twinklytoes]

fair few (sp)

[fin54]

The problem is that our rota patern is over an eight week cycle, when you work "say" wed, thur, fri. it is over a two week cycle as our week starts on a friday, which means you are not getting your contracted hours two weeks out of eight.

140hrs per week to be covered,
4x30hr (4 people doing thirty hours per week)
1x20hr
each shift is a 10hr shift.

[twinklytoes]

hi fin. will come back to this tomorrow, too much wine and see if i can help. just to check 5 staff cover 140hrs per week?

[fin54]

Hi Twinklytoes, yes 5 staff covering 140hr per week, 4 doing 30hrs each and 1 doing 20hrs. THANKS a million for you help I have managed to do one rota but I think its better to have two to produce to the manager who is being a right bitch at the moment. Then she can decide which one suits her as well as us.

[twinklytoes]

us managers can be damn bad sometimes

been having a think today. but a few questions first!

are you paid weekly or monthly?
is the 140hrs allowing for training / annual leave too?

my first thought is that you have to "forget" which day of the week the roster starts. I think it may be better to think about the culmaltive hours for the month and place them in that way, so some weeks you may do a bit more or a bit less but the hours are covered.

most of our staff work 7.5hr shifts which fit nicely into the weekly roster (BTW ours is a sunday start date but thats a traditional NHS thing!), but our night staff do 10.75hrs per shift, this fits better into a two week pattern. staff tend to do 7 on, 7 off or 4on, 3off, 3on, 4off. This also gives the flexibility to staff to extend their holidays (7nights, 7 off, 2 weeks leave) - this is a real hit with our teams.

I think an 8wk roster is too long, 6wk is better to work with, but good practice is to always have four weeks published. Its also good practice to open for requests and close these on the day the roster is to be created for that period is closed. I can get my hands on a roster publishing calendar if thats helpful to you which is based on the 4wk model.

One of the major issues is trying to fit these in aswell as things like flexible working requests that have been honored (you may not be privvy to that info but with such a small team you probably know anyway)

You say that for 2wks in 8 you don;t achieve your contracted hours. Are you still paid for this?

can't think of anything else at the moment but theres some food for thought for you.

[southeasterastra]

rotas are a real pita. i have to do them too.

once you've done them write each person's name down then mark off each time you've scheduled them down to work, then you can work out if it's fair.

[KatyMac]

I have a fabulous spreadsheet that shows me my rotas in lots of different colours (like a bar chart or a gantt chart)

I love it - but it doesn't help you sorry

[fin54]

HI Twinklytoes, Woo that an awful lot to take in but here is some answers for you.
A/L is included but not training, we have to go for training in day hrs and get paid day shift rates. I also work for the NHS, there are no flexible working requests within our team but the five of us have different holiday entitlements as we all have deferent lengths of service ( I have 20 yrs service so have 258 hrs a year).
Because our week starts on a Friday if you worked wed, thu & Fri one week the next week you would work Thu, Fri & Sat you only get paid for 20 hrs 2 weeks out of the 8 this is why it has to change as the trust is breaking their contract with you by not paying your full contract hrs.
Manager?s ?????
Nice enough but doesn?t know how to do her job, handed us a rota and told us if we didn?t like it to come up with something that was acceptable to us all, her rota only had one person on one night and a thirty hr worker down as a twenty hr, I would have given her it back and asked her to amend it but the other?s didn?t want to do that so we are trying to work out a rota to give her, I think we have managed to do one but have to wait to all the team see it before we can submit it to her and 2 staff are on holiday at the moment.
I am going to print out what you have told me and study it and see if we can devise another rota just encase she doesn?t like the one we have done.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOU HELP I REALLY DO APRICIATE IT

[fin54]

Opp's sorry I forgot to say we are paid weekly

[twinklytoes]

but they should be paying you for 30hrs not 20 in those weeks as thats your contract - its not your fault they can't write a roster! I hope you have asked for back pay.

being paid weekly may make most of what I said wasted as the culmulative hours won;t work.

so the electronic rosters that link direct to payroll haven't reached your nhs yet then? they are just wonderful and my big bug bear now - they jsut can;t deal with unsocialble hours or godforbid an early finish because you've got the school run!

[fin54]

OMG back pay haha that would really put the cat among the pidgins, I would love to see it though as your talking a lot of money over a year for the last 20 odd years. My bug bearer is that there is only two of us on at night and we don?t get paid for our thirty minute tea break ( about £15 per week) god forbid some poor patient falls as they have also told us we have to have split breaks from now on, so what does the person who is on their own do about getting the person off the floor or does she leave them there until I finish my tea break. I DON?T THINK SO. It?s just typical of the NHS, but that another question for the union tomorrow when I met up with them.

[twinklytoes]

come and work for us = we'll pay you what your worth including tea breaks.

I do wonder how they are paying you. payroll here always pay basic pay and adjust accordinging to unsocial hours and unpaid codes (previously on timesheets now on the computerised system). I've been burned a few times where I've not told them not to pay. I always get a phonecall / email too (from payroll) if I've signed off something under contract hours. I've certainly paid when I've not done the roster properly whether someone has an extra day off or being stuck with overtime. we're all human and me for one never pick up all the errors.

the problem there - is they know you won't ignore the fall and are assuming our need to "care" will see them through without the added expense.

[fin54]

Hi Twinklytoes, we are going to submit the rota we have came up with but have to wait as two memebers of staff are on holiday just now and out the country.
I will let you know what happens but it will probably be a few weeks before I know.
ONCE AGAIN A BIG THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP

[twinklytoes]

great. hope the union helped too. shall keep an eye out to see how it went.