Our rosters are in constant crisis mode

Planning happens once the last availability is in. Which means never in time. The team can’t plan its life, calls out at short notice, and the plan is finished even later. The loop closes

A fixed planning rhythm with lead time: availabilities by day X, the plan on day Y, after that only swaps among the team. Anyone who doesn’t submit on time is planned from a template. The rhythm creates the reliability, not the other way around. In Austria an employer may unilaterally change the agreed placement of normal working hours only if it announces it for the week in question at least two weeks in advance (section 19c AZG). Exceptions exist for unforeseeable cases, and a collective agreement can deviate. For hotels and the hospitality trade, the WKO’s explanatory notes on the collective agreement likewise name two weeks of lead time for announcing the roster; shorter notice works only by agreement with the employee. Further conditions for unilateral changes are set out in section 19c (2) AZG

Every sick notice is solved one by one: calling, asking, overtime. There are no stand-ins, no order of who gets asked, no agreement on availability

Plan absences as the norm: one cover rule per department, a stand-in role on peak days, a pool of temps with clear lead time. What is agreed in advance needs no phone-around

Availabilities, holiday wishes, free weekends: all of it runs through messages, notes and shouted requests. Some get agreed and forgotten. The loud ones get time off, the quiet ones work

One place for all requests, one deadline, one rule for weekends and holidays that is the same for everyone. It doesn’t need to be a tool. It just needs to be one, and apply to all

One person knows every availability, agreement and exception. They build the plan at home in the evening. When they are out, the plan is out

Write the rules down, build a template, train a second person. A rota that only one person can make is not a system, it is a risk