My company wants us to self schedule the days we work.
All of us have to meet the minimum requirement of working 3 days a week, in total.
We also have to work 4 weekend days a month.
Those 4 days can be 4 Saturdays or whatever, rather than alternating weekends, as long as the ‘work 4 weekend days a month’ rule is met.
Most people just self schedule for alternating weekends- on this weekend, off the next.
But it occurred to me that some months have more than just 4 weekends (or 8 weekend days) in them. Some months have 4.5 weekends (9 weekend days) and some even have 5 weekends (10 weekend days).
Those extra weekend days are hard to see using our self scheduling program at work. The schedule we use is just a 4 week block that starts mid-month. Most of folks I work with just alternate weekends. When they schedule themselves “this weekend on, that weekend off”, they work more weekend days than required.
I’d like to game the system and only work my 4 required weekend days a month rather than alternating weekends. I just am not smart enough to figure out how to do this myself in a way that provides me an ideal schedule. An ideal schedule for me is one that meets the required work days (3 a week) and weekend days (4 a month) but also gives me the most days off in a row.
Is there some program somewhere that I could tinker with that could help me to plan a schedule, say over the next several months or even a year, that I can use to plan a schedule that not only meets the work requirements but could then also help me figure out a schedule that maximizes my days off?
It’s not clear from your post, what the exact rules/standards are that you have to meet.
Is this judged each month? Or is it on average over some longer period? I’ve seen different companies calculate things all sorts of ways.
Do you know what the POINT of these rules are? I ask that, because companies make rules for specific reasons. If you technically meet their rules, but due to how you do so, undercut the whole reason for them, you are likely to be fired or reduced in pay or rank accordingly.
Take your “five weekends in some months” observation. If their real goal is to see to it that there are always people working every day, and lots of people play the game you intend to, every time there’s a five weekend month, the company’s performance will be messed up.
But more than anything else, if you want to USE math to solve your concern, you have to start by learning what math THEY are using.
you could poke around on google calendar. Are sundays an option. 2 on 3 off pretty much covers the bases with the occasional manual adjustment.
IME maximizing days off was usually about working around a planned vacation. in your example working M-W then off Th-S. The week after scheduling M-Th off and F-Sun as 3 days. you end up with 8 days off in a row…nice little vacay with zero interruption to the work schedule.
Ignoring holidays, the most I could figure is 6 days in a row off. The constraints as I see them is basically 8 days out of 14 you have to work. The three business days a week is the sticker. Work Wed-Wed, with the following Thurs-Tues off. You’d work 8 and have 6 off. You’d also work every Wed. It’s very similar to Mrs Sans work schedule at the CBRF. Take the extra weekend days that you aren’t required to work as “midweek” breaks. At most, based on a 2017 calendar, is 1 day in January, 2 in April, 2 in July, 1 in September & October, 2 days in December. A lot of effort for 9 potential days. Print out a whole year calendar, grab a highlighter and block out days you don’t want to work, vacations and holidays. Figure out the rest from there.
If Friday night partying is important, schedule work for every Sun-Wed. Of the 9 extra days I listed before, 5 were on Sunday this year.
To late to edit
I think you will find, if you go for this, is they are expecting 2 weekend days every two weeks, not four for the month. They will allow you to take them as back to back weekends or one day per weekend. If this is a new process, I’d not push the edges too hard or they’ll go back to assigning them and leave it up to you to find someone to swap with.
The only rules are 3 days a week and 4 weekend days a month.
I was thinking that since they always post a 4 week block for employees to fill in and not an actual calendar month that I could somehow use that to my advantage. This scheule, for example runs Sunday, June 11th to Saturday, July 8th. I have no idea why they start the schedule on what seems like just some random day of the month, but thought that I could use it to mask my schedule scheming- provided I could come up with a scheme, that is.
I guess Ill just have to play with it and see what I can come up with.