Step One of our plan to utilize WTW to reflect employees’ positions during their scheduled shifts is working well, albeit with some hiccups, but we expected some. Thank you for your patience during the rollout.
We now want to roll out Step Two of our plan to better utilize WTW, which involves exclusively using the Time Off feature to request time off work and “dipping our toe” into using the Tradeboard feature.
Starting immediately, all time off requests should come through WTW and should not be requested verbally, via email or text. Why? To streamline the request process, make it more efficient and reduce the time supervisors spend on this task. If you have not used the Time Off feature of WTW, please watch this video to learn how: https://youtu.be/WN0e8pnQJ10
The City of Johnston Employee Handbook (pg 19) states that time off should be requested at least seven (7) days prior to requested day/s off and that approval is subject to adequate coverage. If multiple employees request the same day/s off, supervisors may need to use a first-come first-served approach to approving the time away from work, but every situation is unique and will be handled as such.
This is how we see the process working:
- Employee submits time off request through WTW which initiates a notification to supervisors.
- Supervisors or designee will review the request and approve or deny it. Don’t worry, we expect denials to be rare; just be aware it may be necessary sometimes.
- The supervisor will review staffing levels for the requested day/s and reassign scheduled employees to different positions as necessary.
- Based on the positions the employee is scheduled to cover on the requested day/s off, the supervisor may ask the employee to post all or part of her shift to the WTW Tradeboard. If this happens, the supervisor will teach her how to post to the Tradeboard and what will happen next. Evening and weekend shifts are the most likely shifts to be offered for trades.
- If shifts are posted to the Tradeboard, employees eligible to work the posted positions can receive a notification, if enabled, and submit their interest in trading a shift. Anything on the Tradeboard will be approved by a supervisor. Again, supervisors are available to teach all employees how to use this feature.
- For last minute requests, i.e. less than 7 days, TEXT your supervisor, and GET AN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT, in addition to submitting a time off request in WTW.
For those of you already using the Time Off feature of WTW, the only thing new is posting to the Tradeboard. If you’ve not used the Time Off feature before, your supervisor is happy to teach you and answer any questions.