Why Your Rota Is Late Every Period

Pick the rota that starts next. Write down two dates: the day it reached your crew, and the day it began. The gap between them is the notice your people actually get. Now write down the day you meant to publish it. If it went out later than you planned, work out where the days went before you blame the building.

Building is one of six things that have to happen in order. Each waits for the one before it, and the only thing keeping the order is you remembering.

The chain behind every rota

Before a rota can go out, this has to have happened:

1. Someone asked the crew what they want and can't do, and enough of them answered.
2. Time-off requests were answered, so the plan knows who is away.
3. The rota was built around cover, qualifications, contract hours and the rest-time rules you work to.
4. Somebody checked it for rule breaks.
5. Somebody approved it.
6. It was published, and everyone on it was told.

Each step has a date it should happen by. Nobody wrote the dates down, so each one slips by a day or two, and the slips add up in front of the last step. That is why a rota that was "going out Thursday" goes out Monday, with three days' notice instead of ten.

flowchart TB
  A[Ask the crew for wishes] --> B[Wishes close]
  B --> C[Build the rota]
  C --> D[Check for rule breaks]
  D --> E[Approve and publish]
  E --> G[Rota starts]
  S[Sick call or leave request] -.->|reopens it| C

The dotted line is the part that hurts. A sick call or a late leave request reopens a rota you thought was finished, and you go back to step three with less time.

What it costs you: the arithmetic

Time spent on rotas is invisible because it comes in small pieces: ten minutes chasing wishes, an evening building, a lunch break fixing one clash. Add the pieces for one period before you decide whether this matters. The figures after "e.g." are made up, to show the sum. Copy the block and replace them with yours. For periods a year, use 13 if you plan every 4 weeks, 26 for every 2 weeks, 52 for weekly.

Chasing wishes and leave (hours per period):         ___   e.g. 1
Building the rota:                                   ___   e.g. 3
Checking it and fixing clashes:                      ___   e.g. 1
Reworking after a sick call or late request:         ___   e.g. 1
Hours per period (add the four):                     ___   e.g. 6
Periods a year:                                      ___   e.g. 13
Teams or sites you do this for:                      ___   e.g. 3
Hours a year (hours per period x periods x teams):   ___   e.g. 234

If your total is a few hours a year, stop here: one small team that a person builds in twenty minutes does not need what the next two posts describe. If it comes out in the hundreds, keep reading, because that is weeks of working time spent on the part of the job that follows rules.

Why this matters beyond you

You are the first person who pays for a late rota, but you are not the only one.

Your crew plans their lives around it. A rota that arrives four days before it starts leaves no room to arrange childcare, a second job or a lift. And a wish only counts if it was asked for early enough to be used. Ask late, and the people who answered get a rota built without their answer.

Your sites pay for the gaps. The shift that nobody noticed was short is discovered at 5am by the person who opens the building. Cover found by phone that morning leaves you few people to ask. Cover offered a week ago has more.

Late plans get less checking. A rota built at nine in the evening against a deadline you have already missed gets less thought than one built on a Tuesday morning with a week to spare.

It comes down to who holds the clock.

What we are going to change

The idea of this series is simple: stop being the clock. Set the dates once for each team, and let the dates run themselves:

• the crew is asked for wishes on a fixed day, and reminded if they haven't answered;
• the rota is planned against your rules the moment wishes close, and checked before anyone sees it;
• it goes out on a date you chose, either on its own, or when you say yes;
• when someone calls in sick, the open shift is offered to people your rules allow;
• a leave request that causes no problem answers itself.

That is what Fivexer's autopilot does, and the next two posts show it. Post 2 walks through how it works and exactly where it stops. Post 3 covers your first three rotas with it, what to measure, and what to expect back. You decide how much it does alone, and it starts at the safest setting. A rota with a rule break in it never goes out by itself.

Before the next post: write your timeline

You can do this on paper today, and it is useful whatever software you use. Work backwards from the date a rota starts.

Write the five dates for your next rota beside the example.

The row that catches people is the second: if wishes close less than your notice period plus a day before the start, the rota cannot go out in time however fast you build it. The autopilot tells you when you save a timeline that doesn't work, but you don't need it to check your own dates.

Take your dates, put next period's calendar next to them, and see how many were missed last time. That is your starting number for post 2.

For the cover side of the chain, the last-minute shift cover checklist lists what to check before a sick call lands.