Here's something to think about (or maybe discuss via comments...I'd love to hear your thoughts on this)...
What do you do when one of your RAs is sick and cannot be on duty that night and none of your other RA can cover the shift? You yourself are on-call for the campus and therefore can't even jump in and help out. (If you could, should you?) You've even called RAs on other staffs and no luck.
What do you do?
Do you randomly pick one RA and tell him/her, he/she needs to change his/her plans?
Do you call all of your RAs and tell them all of them have to pick up a few hours of the duty shift? How do you distribute those hours? Do you just assign them or let them pick? What if they can't come to a compromise? Do you tell the sick RA that in the end it is her responsibility to cover the duty shift or find someone to cover and force her to do the duty shift even though she's sick?
Should we have a back-up plan if an RA has an emergency and nobody can cover that duty shift? What would such a back-up plan look like? Is that even possible?
Lots to think about.
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I feel that another AC / Supervisor should pick up the shift. Or have an incentive for another RA to pick it up, for example, get a small stipend.
ReplyDeleteThe only I time I EVER had a shift covered at the last minute was when I broke my finger at a Res Life event earlier in the day. I finished the event, helped with clean up and take down before I even got help for my finger. When I got my finger taken care of I came back and finished my on-call for the night. I had been on-call plenty of times and been sick. If it is an emergency get coverage otherwise toughen up and deal it. That is what I went by when I worked at UNF last year.
ReplyDeleteI'm torn because I've been sick with H1N1 and still did my on-call shift. It would of been nice to have had that shift covered but it just wasn't possible. I just remembered that for later reference when someone needed a favor.
ReplyDeleteBut unless someone is deathly ill, like, needs to be hospitalized, I don't think people should be let out of their on-call shifts.
I honestly would cover the shift for my RA if I could get a co-worker to cover Pro staff duty for an evening.
ReplyDeleteI think if you build a strong team from the beginning, finding coverage wouldn't be an issue. It also depends on how sick they were, as mentioned in the other posts.
ReplyDeleteIncentives & duty switches also work wonders.
If I absolutely couldn't find coverage from my staff or another area, I would probably help out with rounds and just let the RA on duty know to call with any issues. There are many institutions that only have 1 RA on at a time and they seem to do OK.