Flexible Shift Planning with a Mixed Team: Full-Time, Part-Time and Special Circumstance Staff

Scenario: A Mixed Team of 12

You are managing a 12-nurse ward in a private hospital. Your team is not homogeneous: 8 full-time nurses, 2 part-time nurses, 1 pregnant nurse, and 1 nurse who can only work on weekends. Each has different working conditions and constraints. In this guide, we explain how to efficiently plan this mixed workforce using Patika's advanced staff features.

Step 1: Choosing Configuration Mode

Patika offers two different modes for creating your shift settings:

• Guided Mode: Guides you step by step, explaining each setting. Ideal for beginners. You create your entire configuration in 12 steps.
• Advanced Mode: Access all settings through a tab-based interface. Offers a faster experience for experienced users.

Our Recommendation: If you are using it for the first time, start with Guided Mode. You will understand what you are setting and why at each step. You can switch to Advanced Mode as you gain experience. Settings made in both modes are saved the same way.

Step 2: Setting Up Part-Time Staff

The 2 part-time nurses in your team work 20 hours per week. Planning them like regular staff leads to unfairness. Patika's Part-Time Staff feature solves this problem.

Marking Part-Time Staff:

1. On the Staff page, activate the "Do you have part-time staff?" option in the Table Column Settings section.
2. Turn on the switch button in the Part-Time column for the relevant nurses.

What Changes When Marked Part-Time?

• Target hours are halved: While a full-time nurse targets 160 hours, a part-time nurse targets 80 hours.
• Excluded from weekend fairness: Part-time staff are not included in weekend fairness calculations. This makes the distribution among full-time nurses fairer.
• Excluded from shift type fairness: Similarly, shift type distribution is calculated only among full-time nurses.
• Minimum working hours are halved: More flexible planning becomes possible.

Step 3: Setting Up Flexible Work Mode

One nurse in your team can only work on weekends. Instead of including them in normal planning, you can use the Only on Requested Days work mode.

How to Do It?

1. On the Staff page, change the switch button in the Work Mode column of the relevant nurse's row to "Only on Requested Days".
2. Go to the Calendar Requests page.
3. Enter Work Day Requests for all Saturdays and Sundays for this nurse.

In this mode, the nurse is only scheduled on days they requested and is excluded from fairness calculations. They will definitely not work on non-requested days.

Use Cases:

• Staff who can only work on specific days
• Temporarily assigned staff
• Staff with flexible work contracts

Step 4: Configuring Excluded Hours

Your pregnant nurse cannot work 24-hour on-call shifts, and another nurse has a private appointment every Wednesday afternoon. Patika offers two different exclusion features:

General Excluded Hours

Shift hours that staff never want to work. Ideal for your pregnant nurse:

1. On the Staff page, click the nurse's edit icon.
2. Write "24" in the Excluded Shift Hours field.
3. Save.

Now the system will never assign this nurse to a 24-hour shift. She will only work 8-hour day shifts.

Date-Specific Excluded Hours

Shift hours that staff only don't want to work on specific dates. For the nurse with a Wednesday appointment:

1. Go to the Calendar Requests page.
2. Select the relevant nurse, choose Excluded Hours as request type.
3. Select the relevant Wednesdays on the calendar.
4. Enter the hours (e.g., "8" to exclude 8-hour shifts on those days).
5. Save.

What is the difference? General excluded hours apply throughout the entire month. Date-specific excluded hours only apply to the dates you select. By using both together, you can manage each staff member's special circumstances in detail.

Step 5: Setting Rest and Overtime Rules

When working with a mixed workforce, setting the right rules to protect staff health is crucial. Here are four critical rules you should use:

Maximum Overtime Hours

Limits how many overtime hours a nurse can work per month. For example, if you set it to 20 hours/month, the system will not allow any nurse to exceed this limit. Guarantees compliance with legal working hours.

Require Work After Leave

When you enable this rule, a nurse who takes leave starts working immediately after their leave ends; no unnecessary gap forms between leave and off days. It regulates staff returns and makes planning more predictable.

Maximum Consecutive Off Days

Determines the maximum number of consecutive off days a nurse can have. For example, if you set it to 6 days, no nurse will have 7 consecutive off days. This ensures more balanced planning.

Encourage Four-Day Breaks

When you enable this rule, the system tries to ensure each nurse has at least one 4-day consecutive break per month. Even in a constantly busy team, ensuring everyone gets regular long breaks prevents fatigue and increases motivation.

How to Do It? Enable these rules on the Shift Settings page (Steps 6 and 10 in Guided Mode, Rules tab in Advanced Mode) and adjust the values.

Step 6: Organizing Staff Order

In Patika, staff ordering can affect the priority order in shift planning. You can easily change the order with the Drag & Drop feature.

How to Do It?

1. On the Staff page, click and hold the drag (grip) icon on the far left of the table.
2. Drag the nurse to your desired position.
3. When you release, the order is automatically updated.

Tip: You can create a visual hierarchy by placing senior nurses at the top and newcomers at the bottom of the list. Don't forget to save the ordering changes.

Step 7: Generating the Schedule

When all settings and staff features are ready, click the Generate Schedule button on the Shift Settings page. The system creates the plan according to these priorities:

1. Full-time nurses are planned according to normal rules.
2. Part-time nurses are planned with half target hours and excluded from fairness calculations.
3. The nurse in "Only on Requested Days" mode only works on requested days.
4. Excluded hours are strictly maintained; the pregnant nurse is never assigned to 24-hour on-call.
5. Date-specific restrictions are automatically applied on relevant days.
6. Overtime limits, rest rules, and break incentives are all considered.

Result: Working with a mixed workforce can seem like a nightmare without the right tools. However, with Patika's part-time staff, flexible work modes, excluded hours, and rest rules, you can define each staff member's special circumstances in the system and create a fully automatic, fair plan. Build your first configuration step by step with Guided Mode, review the results, and fine-tune as needed.