[Histonet] RE: time off

[Mayer,Toysha N]

When I did it, seniority first, rotating holidays, but birthdays around holidays were a sore spot. I usually gave the birthday and one day, but not a whole week if it fell within a holiday week.
This allowed those who wanted to rotate holidays to do so, but they could only take that one. No more for the season unless nobody wanted it. As for the length of time, the whole year was fine, but those with kids had to understand that spring break had to be rotated as well.
PRN's are icing, so I tried to accommodate unless they were permanent. One tech off per day is good, depending on workload, but if possible half days could be suggested for all.  Those that come in before 7 work the first half day, and those that come in later work the second half of the day overlapping by at least 1 hr.
Letting parents off for school holidays is ok sometime, but what about the others who may want to be off then? Also, if your lab has multiple parents of children, what is the pecking order?  What about those who have multiple kids, say a 2, 4, 6, and 12 y/old? They might be off for holidays for many consecutive years, I don't think so. 

Toysha N. Mayer, MBA, HT (ASCP)
Instructor
Program in Histotechnology
School of Health Professions
MD Anderson Cancer Center
(713) 563-3481
tnmayer <@t> mdanderson.org

-----Original Message-----

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Message: 2
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 15:13:34 +0000
From: Amber McKenzie <amber.mckenzie <@t> gastrodocs.net>
Subject: RE: [Histonet] RE: time off
Cc: "histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu"
	<histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu>
Message-ID: <5A33C952BB67F4468AF1F36D739212BC13ACDF <@t> JERRY.Gia.com>
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How do you handle PRN's?  If they turn in time off do you grant them before the FT staff or don't worry about their days since they are fill in people?  Do PRN's count as having 1 person off at a time along with the FT staff if you only allow 1 person off per day?

-----Original Message-----
From: Andrea [mailto:abeharry798 <@t> gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 4:41 PM
To: Rathborne, Toni
Cc: Amber McKenzie; histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu
Subject: Re: [Histonet] RE: time off

We also have a policy on the number of people that can be off during peak times. Our vacation schedule runs from June to June of the following year. Staff have up until a deadline of January 31 to put in their request for the next vacation year, whether it is one day or weeks. The requests handed in by this time period are granted based on seniority. ( in our institution they figure it's one of the only perks to being a senior!) After the January 31 deadline it is first come first serve. All vacation requests must be submitted on a vacation request form and time stamped when handed in. This way if two people ask for the same day the person who handed it in with an earlier time stamp is granted the time off.
All of this is written in our scheduling guidelines. It seems to work pretty well.



On 2012-01-03, at 4:32 PM, "Rathborne, Toni" <trathborne <@t> somerset-healthcare.com> wrote:

> We have a Laboratory policy which states that holidays will be rotated. There is also a section which gives a limit to the amount of time an employee can have off during "peak vacation time". For example, our staff can only have a maximum of two weeks off during the peak summer time, and no more that 2 days off during the last two weeks of December. I personally have no problem with staff requesting time off early in the year, but I do ask that they discuss with their coworkers before giving me the request. 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: histonet-bounces <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu [mailto:histonet-bounces <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu] On Behalf Of Amber McKenzie
> Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 4:10 PM
> To: histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu
> Subject: [Histonet] time off
> 
> 
> Those of you who are supervisors, how do you handle your co-workers asking for time off?  I have 2 employees that have asked off already (jan 3rd) for every day they want off for the entire year!  Do you grant them the days off since no one else has asked off yet, or tell them it's not fair to continuously get off around every holiday by asking off  5 - 12 months in advance? 
> 

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Message: 3
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 16:41:34 +0100
From: "Gudrun Lang" <gu.lang <@t> gmx.at>
Subject: AW: [Histonet] time off
To: "'Amber McKenzie'" <amber.mckenzie <@t> gastrodocs.net>
Cc: histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu
Message-ID: <D9903C4269A343A9A0BEAF3C8F9651E1 <@t> dielangs.at>
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We have a list, that can be filled with holiday-wishes. We arrange a special
date (for summer holidays e.g. in february) until then the wishes had to be
declared. If there are no troubles concerning the number of workers
simultanously off, the holidays are fixed. If there are troubles, we speak
about that in a meeting. 

We have no yearly rotation, but something like a generation-agreement.
Mummies with children in school or kindergarden have the first choice during
school-holidays. Co-workers without children or with older children are
usually happy, not to take vacancies at the same time.

So over the years, we were happy to reach an everybody-happy-state. Hope, it
will go on.
Gudrun