6 Key Mistakes in Completing a Duty Rota

Learnings from Lynda, Insights and valuable information for care home managers in the UK.

I have some very strong rules I have learned over the years, in completing duty rotas. The most important thing is to be as fair as possible while providing the cover the residents need to receive their care.

Request Books

One of the essential things that staff have to know is the request book is for SPECIAL requests only. This is because the most important thing is to provide care. If a minority of staff are essentially doing their own duty rota through requests, it can quickly upset the rest of the team whose rotas are amended to fit in the requests. Tempting as it is to try and keep everyone happy, having clear boundaries around requests gives the team stability and trust in the person doing the rota.

Fixed Weekend Rota Patterns

Weekend challenges come when weekends are fixed. We are all quick to learn to book holidays on the weekend we are on duty, thus getting more weekend time. This is particularly challenging if the rota pattern gives your staff every other weekend off. Fixed patterns are wonderful for giving staff certainty to make plans. They come unstuck if the holiday allocations don’t take account of which team is covering which weekend and too many on one rota get their holidays, which leads us to the next issue.

Approving Too Many Holidays In One Week

The solid base of a good duty rota is an effective holiday booking system. This applies across the whole year and not just key holiday periods. In the interests of fairness and not overworking the carers on duty, most care homes have zero holidays approved during the 2 week Christmas period. It has lots of benefits. It’s fair to everyone and it saves on any agency costs used to cover holidays. Agency care is very expensive at Christmas.

I used to have a holiday request diary; 1^st come first served. All entry requests had to be signed and dated for the day they were entered. Once the set number were entered no more could be booked. This was supported by a holiday request form which was approved by the manager. The manager checked the diary and either approved or denied the holiday request. Simple but effective.

The difficulty occasionally arises when a new team member has pre-booked holiday. This is when Flourish comes into play.

Playing Favourites

One of the oldest and most annoying aspects of planning a rota is when the person doing the rota gives their friends and favourites the best shifts! I can vouch, when there is no fixed weekend rota, staff are very aware of who gets the most weekend shifts or the most early shifts.

This has to be balanced by managing the work/life balance of staff to meet the needs of any care situation – School holidays, helping elderly relatives or a special celebration. The duty rota is where the crossover happens between your teams work life and their home life. This is where fairness and good boundaries come into play.

This was most evident at Christmas. I used to put up a blank rota at the end of November and ask the team to fill their preferred rota. This system relies on staff understanding they are employed to cover 24/7, 52 weeks a year. Many times it was easy, as someone who wants Xmas off accepts they cover new year. On rare occasions I would have to check the previous years rota and allocate a fair rota to ensure all the shifts were covered.

Rota Done Too Late

Not getting the rota out till the week before impacts the work life balance. It also shows a lack of respect for your team and an inability to manage your work time. It’s easy in the everyday challenges of running the home to become overwhelmed meeting the immediate needs of your residents’ and your team. There are several ways to overcome this, one of them is delegating the job to someone else who has more time than you. Rotas should be up at least two weeks in advance to allow people to plan their lives and to identify where you may need bank or agency cover. Then there is the opposite mistake as well…

Rota is Done Too Early

This might seem impossible, but if it does happen I can assure you the next issue will be people wanting to swap shifts because they’ve not entered a request into the diary, or someone goes on long term sickness or leaves. Then you have to amend the whole rota again. This is frustrating if your team have already made plans. So my guidance is to keep only a months rota on the wall.

I wish you all well in finding out the best way to meet your residents and your teams needs. Keeping the home team happy to cover is one of the greatest gifts a manager can have.

All the Best,

Lynda