July 24, 2017 – Scheduling staff in patient-care facilities is anything but cut and dried.
Depending on the type of scheduling tools used (if any), planning staffing needs involves guesswork and multiple revisions before the schedule period begins. A time-consuming process for unit managers, once all staff is scheduled to their FTE, open shifts often remain. This is when contingency resources are tapped into – whether it’s core staff in extra or overtime, resource pool staff, or agency.
Filling vacant shifts is often a frustrating process that involves managers making desperate recruitment calls and bartering with staff to pick up shifts – leaving managers stuck in a reactive world instead of a proactive one. This approach supports or rewards staff to hold out until the last minute to pick up shifts in hopes of a higher incentive. This is a common approach to open shifts that results in negative staff morale and increased labor costs.
Click here to read the article in Becker’s Hospital Review from Ken Bailey, Division Director of Staffing Operation and Productivity at CHI Health, and Jackie Larson.