Community Hospital Anderson Scheduling

System/software used:

Community Hospital Anderson uses Kronos as its scheduling system and time clock.

However, the dietary department (dietitians and kitchen staff) schedules are generated in

Microsoft Excel and phsyically posted within the department.

Employee scheduling requests:

As of right now, many of the features of Kronos are not being used by the hospital, are

being used by only a few departments or are being underutilized. This is a result of the recent

incorporation into the Community Health Network and the change over of many systems.

Full time employees generally have a set schedule, unless they need to request a specific

day off. Part time employees are scheduled to fill in any gaps in the schedule and often work 3-4

hour shifts. Any employee can submit a general availability to the supervisor for set days off or

to be scheduled around a second job, etc. Any other time off must be requested in writing and

submitted to the supervisor before the schedule has been finalized and posted (about 2 weeks in

advance). If the day requested off is a weekend or holiday, the individual must find their own

replacement, as the schedule for weekends and holidays is set (employees work every other

weekend and every other holiday). These requests must be submitted with the signature of the

employee who is willing to cover the missed weekend or holiday shift.

Functions in addition to scheduling:

Kronos is capable of several payroll functions, including: scheduling, attendance and

absence management (PTO), and serves as the time clock. Currently, many of these functions are

being performed outside of Kronos, though eventually will be transitioned to utilizing the payroll
system entirely. Attendance and scheduling are tracked manually while call ins and PTO usage

are added into Kronos by a supervisor after a call in.

Trading shifts:

Employees are allowed to trade shifts freely, provided the trade does not push an

employee into overtime. The entire shift must be covered and if the shift is divided, either half

traded away or traded to multiple individuals, the partial shifts must not overlap. Trades occur

regularly and often do not include the supervisor. For example, some trades are just swapping

positions for a single day, but not changing shifts or affecting the schedule or coverage. Shift

changes just need to be reported to the supervisor for the record so that the schedule can be

updated to reflect the change.

Shift swaps can be done through Kronos, though this feature is not being utilized at the

moment. When all payroll functions are transitioned to Kronos, trades can be done at any time

with appropriate record of the swap.

Call ins:

When an employee is unable to come in to work, they must call in at least one hour

before the beginning of the scheduled shift. They must speak with a supervisor to report the call

in. 6 absences or tardies are allowed in a rolling 1 year period. Some positions have more call ins

than others; the kitchen positions have more call ins than expeditors, call center, and room

service specialists. Call ins can be tracked on Kronos, though currently they are added in

manually after the fact.

No shows:

Employees are given a warning with their first no call no show. Termination follows the

second no call no show. There are two situations where employees no call no show. The first is

when the employee has decided to quit and rather than come in to work to finish out their

schedule, they don’t show up. The second is where employees are mistaken about their schedule.

Perhaps they were scheduled to work the first shift, but they thought they were scheduled as the

second shift. Typically in this situation, a supervisor would call the employee to check on them

and inform them of the schedule. Often the employee would come in to finish out their scheduled

shift. I have seen one occasion where an employee got their schedule mixed up and they did

come in as soon as possible. I have not seen an employee no call no show.

Peaks and valleys:

There are definite peaks and valleys for scheduling, though these are job dependent. For

many positions, the peaks are during meal times, though the dishroom peaks between meals and

the call center begins to peak right before the beginning of meals. For some positions, especially

room service specialists, these peaks and valleys result in short shifts or split shifts. These

positions often are part time to accommodate the limited need each day.

Training:

In the event of a new employee, the schedule would be updated to reflect their training.

Their shift would be labeled with the position that they are training with and the notation

“TRAIN”. The new employees shifts would also be bold type to denote training and the shift of
the person doing the training is also labeled in bold font so that they know that they are doing the

training. This allows all parties to know what to expect from a shift.

Due to COVID-19, a hiring freeze was put in place. Just this week a new employee that

was actually hired back in February was allowed to start their orientation and training, but

external hiring is not possible.

Overtime:

Generally speaking, overtime is not allowed without approval from a supervisor. For

most positions, overtime is only approved in situations such as a call in which the only person

who can cover is already working a full schedule. The one main exception is for the weekend on

call dietitian. Due to the nature of the new pay period, the weekend falls at the end of the work

week. This means the weekend on call dietitian works their typical hours during the week and is

often pushed into overtime when they are called in to work.

Kronos is able to keep track of overtime, which is helpful because the threshold for

overtime is different for different positions. Full time employees only acquire overtime if they

work more than 80 hours in a pay period. The total number of hours worked each week is not

important provided the total number of hours for the pay period is less than 80. For part time

employees, overtime is achieved when more than 40 hours are worked in 1 week. For some

positions, overtime would be earned after working more than 8 hours in a single shift, though

this is less common.

On call:

The only position that has an on call component is the dietitian. On the weekend or on

holidays, the on call dietitian is almost exclusively called for tube feed consultations. Much of
this work can be done from home, so only very rarely would the on call dietitian have to

physically come in to work. The reduced number of calls on weekends and holidays is due to the

decision of the department to be intentional with the patients seen on Fridays, attempting to

reduce the need for calls on the weekend.

Summary and Conclusions:

There are several things that I found to be of note while reviewing the scheduling

process. First, it seems like extra work is being done to generate and maintain schedules due to

the underutilization of Kronos. Some training would facilitate the transition to the new system

and then the many features of Kronos can be fully utilized. This would streamline the scheduling

process.

Secondly, there is a policy that is in place now as a result of incorporation into the

network that mandates the use of PTO to cover any and all time off, regardless of the will of the

employee. If an employee must ask for a day off for a doctors appointment and that day is

typically a day that they work, then they will be required to use PTO to get the day off, even if

the day is requested off prior to the generation of the schedule. This policy seems to have created

some discontent with employees, even though the decision was not made by the hospital itself,

but rather made by Community Health Network. Prior to the incorporation in the network,

Community Hospital did not require employees to use PTO to cover all their hours. They were

allowed to request unpaid time off and use their PTO as they saw fit. It is unfortunate that these

decisions are being made at a network-level, because this means changes cannot be made to

improve the employee scheduling process.