Rostering of Staff is this week’s Thursday Tip from Canavan Byrne. This is an area frequently identified as a non-compliance during the inspection process.
The staff roster is vitally important to the general day to day running of the childcare environment, it is the brain of the service – the first line of defence in ensuring your service is prepared for the week ahead.
Today’s tips outline what the functions of a Staff Roster is, the common non compliances and tips on how to ensure all of the correct information is available on the time sheets.
Staff Rostering: The Functions
- To act as a live representation of what is happening in the service on any given day.
- To meet ratio balance in the service, ensuring that the correct adult: child ratio is maintained throughout the day, every day.
- Ensuring that annual leave is accounted for.
- Ensuring that there is an alternative person in place in lieu of a person on sick leave/annual leave.
- Representing all staff members contractual working hours, and ensuring their allocation.
- Representing staff absence, be that through sick leave, annual leave, parental leave, or so on.
- Representing repeated lateness or absenteeism, when updated in real time daily.
Common Non-Compliances During Inspection
- The roster is not adequately developed, is handwritten or scribbled out, which leads to an illegible roster that is confusing for staff, looks wholly unprofessional and omits important information.
- Staff members are not appropriately assigned to care rooms. This could create a ratio imbalance in the service, leading to serious non-compliance throughout the day.
- Staff roles and responsibilities in the care rooms are not assigned through the roster. Lead Educators, Educators and Aim support workers should be clearly identifiable through the roster – to all members of the team for clarity regarding the roles and the responsibilities of their teammates. This should also be clear to inspectors from Tusla, DES and Pobal who require this information during the inspection process. Funding can be affected due to inaccuracies, such as the wrong person being assigned to a role, or AIM support being paid but no member of staff is in place.
- Staff roles are not assigned. For example, DPIC (Deputy Person in Charge), PIC (Person in Charge) , DLP (Designated Liaison Person – Child Protection) DDLP (Deputy Designated Liaison Person) , FAR (First Aid Responder), Fire Officer, LINC coordinator, and so on. Staff could therefore find it difficult to identify the persons responsible for these roles. In the case that a Child Protection concern was to come to light, uncertainty around who is responsible for disclosures could lead to the information not being passed to the appropriate person promptly, or misinformation being passed. In the event that a First Aid Responder was required in an emergency situation, confusion over who was responsible for this, or who to call upon becomes a serious high-risk situation.
- The Manager is not included on the roster. The manager’s hours not being accounted for on the roster leads to uncertainty as to who oversees the service, who is responsible to open and close the service, whether there is someone available to deal with a parental concern at any given time. This could lead to unnoticed gaps that need to be filled by the deputy person in charge.
- Live updates are not noted on the roster. For example, a staff member is sick, has an appointment, or so on. Should information on the whereabouts of specific staff members be required during an investigation, inaccurate rostering could create unnecessary confusion for the investigating officer. Notwithstanding this, in the event that the whole service required evacuation, the roster could prove an integral piece of information for the emergency services.
- Cover staff/relief staff are not identified throughout the roster. It is vital when updating the staff roster, that any cover or relief staff are identified on the roster with their care room assigned to them. Cover staff must have their hours of work clearly identified, not only for inspection purposes, but again as above, from a health and safety point of view, should a full evacuation of the service be required. Similarly for administrative purposes, during the calculation of staff hours and so on.
- Students on work experience are not identified on the roster. Any persons with regular access to the children, whether included in the ratio or not, should be included on the roster to reflect the accurate number of adults in the service at any given time. This will also assist the service and the student themselves when calculating the work experience hours.
- The exact times of breaks are not assigned. All breaks (out and back in) should be listed for all staff counted in ratio. The person assigned to cover this break period should also be listed to appear on the roster. It is important that any changes made to the rostered breaks should also be updated on the live roster.
Note the Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997, stipulates the following requirement regarding rest breaks: 15 minute unpaid break where an employee has worked for 4.5 hours and a 30 minute unpaid break where the employee has worked more than 6 hours.
There is not an entitlement to both and the 30 minute break can include the 15 minute break. These breaks are not considered working time and there is no entitlement to be paid. However, some services may pay for rest breaks. The more information available to an inspector on the roster, the easier it will be for them to review compliance. Lunch-time and emergency cover (such as for staff toilet breaks, nappy change cover) needs to be clearly visible and available for an inspector to view.
What is input on paper should be what is in practice (actually happening) inside the rooms. Canavan Byrne provide an excellent resource pack, including a roster template, which is an essential tool to ensure your roster template is compliant, accurate and easy to maintain. The pack is available here to purchase.
