​Why Does The Schedule for a Posted Month Often Change After the Initial Posting?

• ​Changes to the Staff Schedule for a Given Month Occur for One of Three Reasons:

  • ​1.) Covering Time-Off requests. When staff members turn in Time-Off requests with less than 30 days notice; management - as a service to the staff - often tries to honor those requests. However, as mentioned above, one of the down-sides to scheduling last minute Time-Off requests is that it forces changes to the current month’s schedule, thus degrading schedule stability for everyone. Again, this is one of the key reasons why we encourage staff members to provide advanced notice for Time-Off requests.

  • 2.) Absenteeism, Jury Duty. When a staff member calls off for a single day, or informs us that they have an injury or doctor’s note requiring them to be off for an extended time period; or when a staff member is forced to attend jury duty, the short term schedule will necessarily change to cover their absence.

  • 3.) Turn-Over. When a staff member leaves the practice – whether voluntarily or involuntarily – this will very often require change in the short term schedule, since even in the case of voluntary severance (i.e. resignation), no more than two weeks notice is generally given (except in the case of some contractual staff members who have extended contractual notice-of-termination requirements due to the increased time involved in replacing their position.)

  • Floater Positions: One key reason for staffing the “Floater” positions atPetWow is to minimize the impact of the above three circumstances upon the volatility of the staff schedule. However, even such additional staffing is incapable of preventing all such volatility.

  • In General: The above three schedule change exposures are simply part of small business life – and even big business life for businesses in medical related industries (such as nursing, dental offices, etc). There are many different roles and shifts to cover each day atPetWow, and all staff members have Time-Off needs to be met. This unavoidably, and always, entails some degree of volatility in the staff schedule.

​​How Schedule Changes are Communicated by Management

• ​Schedule Changes Occurring 22 Days or MORE From the Change Date:

  • ​A general email with “read receipts” will be sent to all staff members informing them that the staff schedule has been updated and requires their review. Individual emails will NOT be sent because 22 days gives staff members - who are checking their email each day they work as per policy - plenty of time to review the newly posted schedule and notify management of any conflicts in a timely fashion which allows management to make any needed adjustments.

• ​Schedule Changes Occurring 21 Days or LESS From the Change Date:

  • ​Each individual staff member affected by the change will be contacted personally (by phone, or text, or face-to-face, etc) asking if they can cover the proposed change, before the change is officially posted.

Clarification About Scheduled Days Off and Saturday Rotations:

• ​While PetWow management tries to keep consistency as much as possible with intra-week days-off and Saturday rotations, these are generally NOT set in stone. Every/Other Saturday rotations, or days off during the week, are subject to alteration due to any of the three reasons for schedule changes listed above (Covering Time-Off Requests, Absenteeism, Turn-Over).

• In addition, standard scheduled days off & Saturday rotations may occasionally change due to changing business activity levels (such as a general staffing uptick for Spring/Summer scheduling versus Fall/Winter scheduling - which may require a broad restructuring of the “Master” schedule). Standard scheduled days off & Saturday rotations may also change due to the general growth of thePetWoworganization (such as the addition of new locations, services, or hours of operation). In all such cases,PetWowmanagement strives to give at least 21 days advanced notice concerning the upcoming change.

• The only time that a specific day off during the week, or a specific Saturday rotation, is protected from change is if such a requirement is EXPLICITLY communicated by the staff member and such restriction is accepted by management (such as when management agrees to hire a staff member with a school-schedule restriction). However, it should be noted, that as a general rule, such a stipulation/restriction is generally rejected by management as it places unrealistic constraints on our ability to conduct effective scheduling for the needs of our staff and business activities.