Holiday Staffing Assignments

Holiday staffing assignments can be used to automate the process of assigning employees to work holidays. This ensures that the holidays are being fairly distributed. Holiday assignments are given to employees based on their Home Labor Distribution.

If core schedules are not populated on holidays, "need-based” scheduling is used. If the organization does not normally use need-based scheduling (for example, if all employee schedules are core schedules), additional set up may be required to populate the activity codes and employee preferences for these dates. For more information, see Additional Need-Based Scheduling Set Up at the end of this chapter.

When the system validates the Holiday Rule during scheduling, it determines whether employees are "eligible" to work, which means they are not disqualified based on the holiday assignment settings. For example, with the Every Other Same holiday rule, if an employee worked the same holiday in the previous year, they are not eligible to work that same holiday in the current year--they are disqualified from working. Eligible employees can be scheduled if there is a scheduling opening available for them, and if they meet other scheduling rules, such as overtime, position permissions, etc.

The number of staff required to work a holiday may be more or less than normal staffing, depending on the department. For example, Emergency Room staffing requirements may be higher than normal, but Medical/Surgical staffing requirements may be lower than normal, if routine appointments are not scheduled. Other department staffing requirements may remain unchanged.

• If the staffing needs should NOT be adjusted, but all eligible staff should be scheduled, this can be accomplished by setting the Staffing Level value in the Holiday Passes of the Selection Styles to a value higher than 100% (for example, 150%).

  The percentage of staffing needs the schedule should be populated up to, during this need-based scheduling pass. Enter the whole/decimal number of the percent (for example, enter 80.5 for 80.5% population of needs).

  • This setting can be used to populate all eligible employees on a holiday. For example, if the staff requirements on the Staffing Plan is set to 10, but there are 12 employees who are eligible to work a holiday, set this value to 120% or higher and all employees will be scheduled.
  • This setting can also be used to "even out" under-staffing of a schedule when an organization unit doesn't have enough staff available. For example, one pass can be set up to populate at 80%, and a second pass can be set up to populate at 100%. The first pass populates each day in the schedule up to 80% of staffing needs, and the second pass populates as many days as possible up to 100%.

    With that setting, if the needs for a coverage period is 10 RN's, the system first populates 8 RN's every day, and then goes back and tries to populate 10 RN's on as many days as possible (without breaking overtime/approved hours rules). If this staffing level value is left at 100%, the days initially populated by the schedule may have 10 RN's, but the days populated later may only get 6.

• If the staffing needs should be adjusted on a holiday, these can be changed on the Staffing Plan or Core Staffing Plan. For more information, see Adjusting the Staffing Plan/Core Staffing Plan for Holidays. Note: Changing the Staffing Plan value will change the needs as viewed in the Schedule Needs grid and on reports.

  The Staffing Plan or Core Staffing Plan can be adjusted to change the staffing requirements on Holiday dates. This method can be used in departments where the staffing requirements are higher or lower than usual on holidays.

  To adjust the staffing needs in the Staffing Plan, complete the following steps:

  1. From the Actions section>Scheduling card, open the Staffing Plan screen.

     Note: This screen can also be opened from the Actions section>Scheduling card>Schedule screen. Click on the Open Staffing Plan button in the left pane.

  2. Enter the Organization Unit of the schedule to be modified.

     Select the appropriate code for this field. The number of organization unit levels available and the organization unit names displayed depend upon the corporate structure.

  3. Enter the Start Date and the End Date of the schedule to be modified.

     The last day of the time frame to apply this staffing template. If a default scheduling period is selected from the right pane, the Start Date and End Date fields are automatically loaded.

     The first day of the time frame to apply this staffing template. If a default scheduling period is selected from the right pane, the Start Date and End Date fields are automatically filled.

  4. If a Default staffing template was selected, those values are automatically loaded.

     Indicates whether this staffing template is the default template to be assigned to this organization unit (Yes/No). If a Default template is assigned, that template automatically loads when the schedule is opened for the organization unit.

     Note: The Default Staffing Template values are used for the Budgeted Hours and Costs in the Productivity Report.

  5. If no default was selected, or to change the Staffing Template loaded, click on the Apply Staffing Template button and enter the required information to select a template.
  6. The grid is displayed showing the profile and coverage period, and the staffing needs set for each day.
  7. To change any of the required staffing level values for any days, highlight the cells and type in the new staffing values in whole and decimal numbers. Note: This is the number of staff needed, not an FTE (full time equivalent) value. If the coverage period is for 12 hours, this value means the number of staff required to work a 12-hour shift.
  8. To change any of the required profile codes for the entire selected date range, click on the down arrow to the right of the profile field and select a new profile.
  9. To add new profile/coverage period combinations to the plan, complete the following steps:
     1. Click on the bottom line of the staffing plan, next to the asterisk.
     2. Select a profile from the drop-down menu to the right of the field.
     3. Select a coverage period from the drop-down menu to the right of the field.
     4. Enter the staffing needs for each day of the entire scheduling period displayed.
  10. To delete an entire line in the staffing plan, complete the following steps:
      1. Click on the gray cell to the left of the line. The entire line is highlighted.
      2. Select the <Delete> key on the keyboard.
      3. A message appears verifying the deletion should continue. Select Yes.
  11. When modifications to all fields have been completed, click on the Save button.
  12. These new values are automatically loaded to the Needs grid.

      Note: To cancel the transaction, click on Hide Open Staffing Plan.

  To adjust the staffing needs in the Core Staffing Plan, complete the following steps:

  1. From the Actions section>Scheduling card, select Core Staffing Plan.
  2. Enter the Organization Unit information.

     The organization unit to apply this core staffing template to. This information is defaulted from the Core Staffing Plan search screen and cannot be changed.

  3. Enter the Start Date and End Date of the scheduling date range.

     The last day of the time frame to configure the core staffing plan. If a default scheduling period is selected from the right pane, the Start Date and End Date fields are automatically filled.

     The first day of the time frame to configure the core staffing plan. If a default scheduling period is selected from the right pane, the Start Date and End Date fields are automatically filled.

  4. If a Default core staffing template was selected, those values are automatically loaded.

     Determines whether this record is the default core staffing template, which is automatically loaded to the core staffing plan screen (Yes/No).

  5. If no default was selected, or to change the Core Staffing Template loaded, click on the Apply Core Staffing Template button in the left pane to open the information to select a template.
  6. To change any of the required staffing level values for any days, highlight the cells and type in the new staffing values in whole and decimal numbers. Note: This is the number of staff needed, not an FTE (full time equivalent) value. If the coverage period is for 12 hours, this value means the number of staff required to work a 12-hour shift.
  7. To add new profile/activity code combinations to the plan, complete the following steps:
     1. Click on the bottom line of the plan next to the asterisk.
     2. Select a profile from the drop-down menu to the right of the field.
     3. Select an activity code from the drop-down menu to the right of the field.
     4. Enter the staffing needs for each day of the entire scheduling period displayed.
  8. To delete an entire line in the staffing plan, complete the following steps:
     1. Click on the gray cell to the left of the line. The entire line is highlighted.
     2. Select the <Delete> key on the keyboard.

  A message appears verifying the deletion should continue. Select Yes.

  When modifications to all fields have been completed, click on the Save button.

  Note: To reload the original staffing values after the updates have been saved, click on the Apply Staffing Template button in the left pane. Enter the start and end dates of the date range to be restored and the staffing template code to be loaded. For more information, see Apply Staffing Template.

Below is a listing of holiday rules that can be automated. For each rule, there is also the option of incorporating major holiday/minor holiday rotations, for example, X out of Y Major/X out of Y Minor Holidays.

Note: When setting up the ALL assignment for holidays, do not add any selection criteria. This is the assignment that is given to any employees who do not qualify for any other Holiday assignment.

Note: The assignment configuration in this documentation is used for the staffing of holidays only and does not determine any Holiday pay rules.