A schedule of working hours for all members of the team (Management and Activity Leaders)
Creating a well-designed rota is essential for creating a cohesive, happy, focused team. It is the backbone from which your entire week will operate and must be curated with care and attention.
To ensure the wellbeing of the team, knowing their own shift patterns in advance, and more importantly their down time, is crucial. Knowing when their next break is, or knowing what kind of situations they are going to be dealing with this week allows team members to adjust their approach, outlook, and efforts to suit business and the role.
Below is a step by step guide to creating a rota. Don't worry if it looks daunting, you will get to practice making it with support before the summer starts.
Follow along! If you're using a computer, you can download a blank copy of the rota used in this tutorial by clicking here then selecting File > Download or by making a copy File > Make a copy
Stage 1 Complete the information in the left-hand box by double clicking each section and choosing from the dropdown menu. Along with activities, you should also add meal supervision, inspections and other in-house activities, and days off.
You will use the group booking timetables and staff lists to create this section. Which activity leader to assign is entirely your choice, but remember to make it fair, evenly split, well rotated and be conscious of time off.
It should now look something like this:
Stage 2 Highlight the entire box outlined with a thick black line, then right click > create filter, then sort by start or leader or schedule, whichever you find easiest in the next stage. In the following stages, the examples are sorted by leader.
Stage 3 The right-hand box is where you will create the final rota for the team. Any timeslot in this section can be assigned an activity from Stage 1 by double clicking the box. The drop-down list (below) will be sorted in the order you selected in Stage 2.
Depending on your Stage 2 choice, you can input activities by completing one person at a time, or by completing activities by time of day. Whichever you find easiest and most logical for you.
Here you will also need to ensure that team members are allocated for meal supervision as there should always be someone on duty to help the students and control canteen lines. Make sure you allocated these in shifts, so everyone gets a chance to eat.
Days off for you and your team should also be allocated in this way.
The completed rota should look something like this:
Stage 4 To publish the rota you first need to highlight all the information you want to share (everything on the right-hand side of the spreadsheet), the select:
FILE > DOWNLOAD > PDF > EXPORT "SELECTED CELLS" > EXPORT
or
FILE > PRINT > PRINT "SELECTED CELLS" > NEXT > PRINT TO PDF
Publish the timetable as a PDF in the team’s group WhatsApp and print a copy to display in the office.
NOTE the rota should be published with a minimum of 4 days’ notice, and its creation is something that should be a focus for the start of each week. It is important to ensure the timetable is correct before publishing, and that after publishing no changes are made without first discussing it with those involved in the changes, and only in extreme circumstances.