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> Resources > The Human Services Professionals > Web Pages > rrr  

The Roster Review Resource (RRR)

Overview

Within the context of our Best Practice (BP) Rostering Folder, the RRR is the software and process that creates greenfield rosters, and then (optional) helps you to use this information to create performance improvements. It comprises:

  • Development of greenfield rosters based on an online assessment of rostering need.

  • (Optional) development of target core rosters ('next year' plus '5 year') based on your greenfield rosters as a (typically unachievable) ideal.

  • (Optional) development of target worked rosters ('next year' plus '5 year') that are an improvement towards the ideal.

  • (Optional) daily shift management, including online staff availability and bookings, via RosterCoster.xls and RosterCoster.com working in tandem.

The RRR Team

  • Customer interface: Claude Staub, phone 0433 888 889.

  • Product developer: Damien Ryan-Green, phone ph 0438 388 922.

  • Software: Tony Ryan, Damien Ryan-Green and Guy Thomas of Loop Software.

  • Key stakeholder: Kylie Hughes, phone 0409 806 084.

Overview of the Process

  • Initiation: we meet your team to confirm the scope of your requirements, and the project team.

  • Communication: we send a brief of the project, including a copy of the current document, to the project team.

  • Workshop: we meet the project team in a run-through of the process.

  • Survey: online survey of roster needs, including a rationale for each response.

  • Online publishing of results: includes and executive summary, and rosters and costings based on the survey.

  • Review: we meet your team to confirm that the project has delivered the required outcomes, and discuss and document ‘where to from here’, which typically comprises a 'roster review day' in June each year which may or may not involve us.
Formalising your Business Rules

Most organisations have quite an extensive set of rostering business rules. These are typically a combination of:
  • Whatever is laid down in Awards

  • Additional local business rules that are published

  • Additional local business rules that are not published, but which are 'local practice'
All three matter, and typically, those that are not written down are just as powerful as those that are not.
 
Our approach:
  • Step 1: Assist an organisation to publish, in easy to read, access and maintain format (we recommend in database form*) all local business rules on a single site (which eliminates the problem of version control that arises when, for example, these sorts of things are done in print, or in files distributed.

  • Step 2: Ensure that as many of these business rules are coded as 'compulsory' or 'recommended' conditions in your rostering software - as it turns out, if a piece of software blocks an illegal shift, this is much more powerful than demanding that such shifts not be created.

  • Step 3: Assist an organisation to publish, as a subset of the database in Step 1, any items that could not be covered in Step 2. The net count of business rules thus created, the business rules that a manager needs to be actively mindful of, and remember, then, becomes a much shorter list.
*As part of our promotion of best practice between organisations, we maintain a master database of all business rules we collect as we move around organisations. This is a valuable resource, as it allows an organisation to browse business rules that have perhaps never occurred to them, or which they actually follow, but have forgotten to switch on in their own business rules database.
 
Some Typical Business Rules
 
Just to get some momentum going, as 'non-software' as the following seem, all of these can be databased and / or workflowed, in line with our mantra that as little as possible in the world of rostering should be "manual", relying on local rostering coordinators to manually control functions such as:
  • Roster design must be in accordance with the Award and local best practice guidelines, which are in turn developed with reference to sector-wide benchmarks.

  • For each accommodation setting, there is a RRR Roster Model that is based solely on an assessment of client need, before individual staff considerations are taken into account. While this roster may never be worked, it sits behind the core roster (which does take into account individual staff needs) as an ideal.

  • Projected Rosters must be formally reviewed annually during June, and must also be reviewed each time there is a significant change in client need.

  • Posted Rosters must be posted to staff on or before the Tuesday before the roster commences.

  • Timesheets must be posted to the manager on the first working day after the pay period ends.

  • Etc.