Labor Levels
Contents
Labor Levels
You need to define labor levels that represent the divisions between the type of job titles / position that employees work, and the different places that an employee can work within your facility. A very simple example is:
| Nurse Type |
|---|
| RN |
| LPN |
| CNA |
| Floor |
|---|
| 1st Floor |
| 2nd Floor |
| 3rd Floor |
You are defining two things:
- The names of the labor levels (Nurse Type and Floor)
- The items with each labor level (RN, LPN, CNA and 1st, 2nd and 3rd Floor).
In the software we would designate the Nurse Type to be the Budget Group Labor Level, and the Floor to be the Floor / Unit Labor Level. This designation is done in the System configuration, Labor Level Designation tab. Two labor levels are the minimum required to use the scheduler. There is one more level that is required when you need more than one scheduler in your software. If for example you want to schedule your nursing, dietary and housekeeping staff in three distinct groups then you would need to add a labor level for this and define this as the Scheduler Labor Level in the System configuration, Labor Level Designations tab.
Department
You may think that your department labor level is already defined in the software and your budgeted staffing levels can be based on your department. In most facilities, there is often more than one department that would be considered to be RNs, LPNs, CNAs etc. If you have separate departments for agency employees, or separate departments for Day, Evening and Night employees, or a separate Per Diem department, then you cannot use the department labor level as one of the two levels required for the scheduler.
Multi Facility
If your software contains multiple facilities then you automatically get a scheduler per facility by designating the facility labor level as the Scheduler Labor Level in the System configuration, Labor Level Designations tab. If you want to have multiple schedulers per facility then you will need to add a labor level. The items within this labor level would be named in this manner:
| Facility ABC Nursing |
| Facility ABC Dietary |
| Facility ABC Housekeeping |
| Facility XYZ Nursing |
| Facility XYZ Dietary and Housekeeping |
This allows you to groups your scheduled staff differently in each facility.
Budget or Scheduling Labor Level
When labor levels are defined in System configuration, Labor Levels tab, you can designate the labor levels to be Budget based and/or Scheduling based. Budget based labor levels will show in the Budget Configuration screen. Scheduling based labor levels will show in the employee's Schedule Patterns tab, allowing you to schedule the employee.
Scheduler Labor Level
Despite it's name, because employees do not work outside of their scheduler labor level, this would be a Budget based labor level only.
Budget Group Labor Level
If employees will only work within their home Budget Group(e.g. an RN will not cover for a LPN position) then Budget Group labor level would be just a Scheduler based level. If you need to allow employees to work in one or more budget groups then you will need to make this labor level a Scheduling level, or make the Department level a Scheduling level. Whatever level you so use, you must also make this a Restricted scheduling labor level. Otherwise, all employees can accept any schedule, i.e. a CNA can accept a RN schedule. You will need to define the Allowable Budget Group Scheduling Labor Levels in System configuration / Labor Level Assignments tab.
Department Labor Level
If you want employees to be paid from a different department when they work in a different Budget Group then the Department labor level is defined as a Scheduling Labor Level. You must also make this a Restricted scheduling labor level otherwise all employees can accept any schedule. You will need to define the Allowable Department Scheduling Labor Levels in System configuration / Labor Level Assignments tab. There is one additional step required when you use departmental scheduling. Because the department labor level is not defined as a Budget labor level, but the Budget Group level is defined as a Budget labor level, you need to make the relationships between the departments and the budget group. This is done in System configuration / Labor Level Assignments tab, using the One to One Budget Group Labor Level Assingment table.
Floor / Unit Labor Level
This will always be a budget and scheduler based labor level.
