Christmas Rotas

[Bellabutterfly2016]

So my good friend is a retail manager and is shortly going to be preparing the dreaded Christmas Rotas!!!!!

She's coming round tonight for some advice as it's stressing her out!!

There's late night shopping which is done on a rota - easy enough

But then Christmas & new year

There's 4 key days that people see as "would rather not be working"

Xmas eve, Boxing Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

Last year she asked who wanted to work Christmas and who wanted new year and there, luckily was a fairly equal split but this year the staffing has changed a bit (it's a small team of 8) and as they're younger and only a couple have kids they all seem to want new year off!!

I said stick with Xmas or new year, write the Rotas - what do people think?

How many staff are needed to work each day?

If they can't agree then maybe it's best just to pick names out of a hat in front of the team to avoid any accusations of favouritism.

I used to write these rotas for a hospital. The standard was to work Xmas one year and then new year the next. If lots of staff turnover happened during the year then the new staff would work Xmas that year.

I think if someone had it last year then everyone else should be considered for it first this year.

I don’t think it should be Christmas or new year , it should be a fair split unless they can work it out amongst themselves . A fair split would be 1 BH each and 1 non BH , assuming they have to work 2 each .

Where I work people are initially allowed to sort of self rota. So a bit of paper is put up with “red shifts”, ie the ones nobody wants to work, xmas day, Boxing Day, late nye, early New Year’s Day. Then amber for stuff like a late on New Year’s Day, early nye, late xmas eve.

People have to put themselves down for one red, one amber. Obviously this will be depend on staff numbers and how many shifts to cover whether the requirements for two shifts are the same.

If people don’t put themselves in then they’re put in by management. It is done kind of on a first come first served basis but management will look back at previous years. So if someone always gets in first and puts them
Selves down for Boxing Day this isn’t fair and they will be moved to xmas day if they didn’t work it the previous year.

Nobody is allowed to say they’ve got small kids, don’t want to work it, etc.

I have this with my rotas

Unfortunately we have to realise the most unreliable ones will call in sick regardless

It's a minefield

@NicoAndTheNiners
That's a good suggestion - ask them to write down which 2 they want to work but she already knows they all want Christmas apart from 2 and want to party at New Year!!!!
There's my friend the manager, 2 full time team leaders (both with kids) and then 7 part-timers.

It's one of those whatever you do people won't be happy situations!!!

They may all want xmas but she needs to put a list up with the right amount of boxes per day. So if she needs 3 xmas day and 3 new year she has three blank boxes per day. They put their names in, first come , first served.

Those that are happy to work New Year get Christmas off, those that worked New Year last year get a choice, then presuming she still has New Year shifts to cover, those are done by those that weren't on the team last year and those that got New Year off last year. When I worked in a hospital (many years ago) parents got priority for Christmas and young people got priority for New Year., I would also prioritise those celebrating their religious holy days (others may have wanted to celebrate their own religious holidays at other times of the year).

I was a retail manager and everyone had to work 2 of the 4 days in any combination. Or of they could get shift covered by someone else i didnt mind

Unfortunately we have to realise the most unreliable ones will call in sick regardless

Then a strong message needs to be given about commitment towards colleagues, not letting other members of the team down because they have to pick up the slack. If there are serial sickness-takers, taking the piss then they need to have their records keep up to date and a management plan in place.

There's no point shrugging shoulders and allowing that behaviour to go unchecked as it has a massive effect on team morale over the long term. They need to know they can't take their job for granted with that attitude.

I used to be a retail manager and had to do Xmas rotas for 17 staff mostly young and a few with families, I used to ask them to give me their top 3 requests for what they wanted off in order and if I couldn't manage everyone's 1st choice I made sure I gave them both their second and third

They need to give you their first and second preferences. It wouldn't be fair to prioritise those with children for Christmas purely because they have children.