General FAQ's

On this page we answer some of the common questions about Smart Rota. We recognise this list is not exhaustive, so please let us know if you have any additional questions and we’ll happily answer them for you. 

How does Smart Rota work?

Smart Rota is an algorithm that prioritises how people want to work and what department needs to be worked and makes the best match for the two. It does this via a set of rules that can be set and ranked according to individual needs and priorities. 

At the outset, the rota manager specifies exactly what they need to develop rules specific to that rota. Then staff specify preferences regarding how they want to work, including their full-time equivalent as well as working day or shift pattern working preferences, and Leave requests to offer them even more flexibility.

Ideally it should be used prospectively to make pay, leave, rostering and expectations easier, and so works best the more information everyone gives at the outset. 

Different shifts can be assigned different “penalties” to allow the algorithm to prioritise those that are more essential or harder to fill. 

The algorithm then produces an optimised rota that will be reviewed by the rota manager, with the option to make any changes needed before it’s published to staff.

How does Smart Rota work if you already have rolling rota in place?

Smart Rota would replace your rolling rota. It’s important to understand that this means there won’t be the same pattern as your rolling rota and there may potentially be periods of the rota that feels “heavier” or “lighter” with less balance/even spread. As a result, it does produce a rota that honours majority of working preferences and leave requirements, giving more balanced staffing and more respect to staff’s autonomy. 

Are the rules set?

No, the rules are not set. Our team will work alongside rota mangers to collect and develop rules around your specific rota. The rules cover different aspects of the rota and can lean towards prioritising leave over working pattern preferences. But these do have to be adapted/ agreed as a cohort and sometimes there will need to be balance or compromise. 

Does it work for both fully staffed and short staffed rotas?

Yes. The level of staffing may restrict how flexible the solution can be and how you decide to prioritise your staffing, but it works for both. It has successfully provided safe staffing and granted 100% of leave requests, filling a 16 person rota with only 11 people. 

Current e-rostering solution doesn’t let us tweak or move shifts - can it do that?

Yes. It generates a rota template that you can then modify or tweak as needed before you publish it to staff. You can choose to publish the whole rota or do this for shorter time period blocks,giving you added flexibility to tweak as needed. 

Compliance and Pay

How does this manage compliance checks?

The software is set up to adhere to junior doctor contract rules and European Working Time Directive. There’s also an inbuilt compliance checker that can be used to check hours worked, confirm compliance against junior doctor contract rules, etc. 

How does this impact pay?

You can choose to specify the working hours that each person needs to ensure they’re working the correct hours and therefore there should be no impact on pay. If the rota is understaffed then you can choose to ignore this and work out their pay month by month according to the hours and working pattern that they end up being scheduled to work. 

If someone wanted to break European Working Time Directive (EWTD) on an individual basis, is this possible or does it have to be agreed group wide?

The default at the moment is to ensure EWTD is not broken, as most people choose not to opt out, but this can be flexed if needed. 

Rota Management

Does it impact the ability to do swaps at a later date?

The Smart Rota software helps to produce your rota, but this can then be managed by your normal processes, whether this is a spreadsheet or other software, and swaps can then be done in exactly the same way as you do it now. We’re working on integrating Smart Rota with Lantum rota management tool, which allows you to automate swap requests, leave requests, bank fill, etc. 

Do you need leave requests in advance? What if you don’t know your leave? 

It works best if mapped ahead, as it allows everyone’s leave requests to be considered. Explaining this and managing expectations of the doctors is important. An alternative way to manage this would be to build your rota in 2 or even 3 different blocks of 2-3 months each, but it will make longer periods of leave less possible. It can also work around flexible requests, e.g. “I would like 2 weeks over the summer but don’t mind exactly when”. Late leave requests can still theoretically be managed with manual swaps or reallocations, if the rota constraints allow. 

How does it manage sick leave and gaps?

Smart Rota helps to produce your rota, but this can then be managed by your normal processes, whether this is a spreadsheet or other software. Sick leave and last-minute gaps would therefore be managed in the same way as you do now. Once Smart Rota is integrated with Lantum rota management tool, the management of these processes would be automated. 

Can it deal with managing long-term sick leave and maternity leave?

Yes - if the rota is already set then you can highlight these as being gaps requiring cover as you normally would. Or you can choose to re-run the algorithm and build the rota with less staff to try and cover these. You can also choose to keep them as flexible shifts if you know about it in advance - or do a combination of all of these!

Can it prioritise night and evening shifts over leave requests?

Yes. You can set bespoke rules and priority weightings for these, specific to your department needs and staff group. 

Does Smart Rota allow you to allocate weekly/monthly roles/location allocations?

Yes. You can specify this from the outset through Smart Rota, and specify exactly which staff can/can’t work different allocations and when. 

HR and Systems

How do I communicate with stakeholders or HR about Smart Rota?

After automatically generating the optimal rota, Smart Rota can sit alongside existing rota

management systems for day-to-day shift management - so communication with stakeholders or HR can be done in exactly the same way as you do it now. 

Does this create more work for the HR team or rota managers?

There’s a need for some initial time investment to get the set up right for your department and staff, but using Smart Rota means you will overall spend less time on the process throughout as there is less time needed to sort out swaps, leave, etc. This will be particularly true for more complex or short staffed rotas. 

How does it work with other systems?

Smart Rota can sit alongside any existing rota management systems for day-to-day shift management. Smart Rota can produce an exportable spreadsheet that can be used as it is, or uploaded to other software if needed. Longer term, there will be the option to fully integrate Smart Rota with Lantum’s own end-to-end tool that allows all aspects of the rota to be managed through that, further reducing the work for rota managers and staff. 

Other

How does it impact/factor in continuity of care? Will it negatively impact training if continuity is lost?

As above, it does remove the rolling rota/predictable pattern of a rota so has the potential to impact shift continuity and resulting continuity of care or training opportunities. But so too does having short-staffed rotas where people have to move to cover different areas. The impact it has on this is dependent on how you choose to set up your rules - so it is possible to set rules up that place more weight on preserving shift patterns/continuity if this is felt to be more important to rota managers and trainees than other rules. In one department in the US it improved continuity of care by 38%. There’s always a balance between different rota aspects and exactly how you want to balance this is up to you.

How do you ensure equity/fairness?

This can be set up in Smart Rota and simply calculated from the rota to check it, with changes made if needed. These calculations can be made publishable to all the staff involved for transparency.  Some departments may make an intentional choice to move away from equity and towards choice, dependent on the preferences of the cohort involved. 

We know increasing numbers of people are choosing to work less than full time (LTFT) - is it responsive enough to cope with that?

One of the main advantages of Smart Rota is around the less-than-full-time work force. It was created and built by a group of paediatricians who had all worked LTFT during their training either for academia or childcare or a mixture of both, and understood the challenges that came with that. Smart Rota was built to intelligently map staff across the week to provide better cover and be less restrictive with when people work.  

How do you deal with trainees with different start dates or if you get/lose additional staff during a rotation?

There are many different ways to set up rotas with Smart Rota to accommodate this - you can choose to set up the rota in shorter time blocks, specify the shifts for different staff for different time periods, or tie down some shifts for some staff with a known contract duration but leave other shifts flexible. This could be tailored to your department's needs and flexed around different staff cohorts as needed. You are not tied to one way of doing things so if these needs change, it can be run a different way in different re-runs.

What if we get the wrong contact details for our staff?

In order to respect the preferences of the staff, we do need to understand their inputs so it would be important to get the contact details for the staff involved. But this would be true to setting up a rota in any form so is not specific to Smart Rota. 

Could it be used to demonstrate a need/business case for more staff?

There are many ways to use this software intelligently. In most user cases to date, we have been dealing with understaffed departments and built rotas around bare minimum levels of staffing to ensure safe cover. However, Smart Rota could be flexed and a rota could be built in whatever way you want - so if you wanted to demonstrate the inability to fill, e.g. training, clinic, SPA shifts, then you could do so and even assign them a higher “penalty” to use this as a case for change for increased staffing. 

Why is it only being used for doctors and not other staff types?

Smart Rota can be used for any staff type. We have chosen to start with doctors initially but it could be applicable to any staff grade, type or area. 

What has the feedback been from staff who have used it?

Feedback is really important to us - especially as it helps us learn more and improve the product further. We have collected both quantitative and qualitative feedback from all of the early adopters so far, and continue to do more analysis all the time. 

Staff have generally responded extremely positively to it. For real life context, in a direct comparison between an old rolling rota and the new smart rota, 9/10 trainees chose the smart rota. 

The more expectation management that is done with staff from the outset the better - this is a different way of building rotas and does impact the shift patterns and this needs to be clear. This also helps determine which rules/patterns are most important to that staffing group, which may vary between cohorts. 

What are the next steps if we want to adopt Smart Rota?

If you want to use Smart Rota, the Lantum team would arrange a kick off meeting to understand your needs, priorities and help to build the rota rules and inputs for your department. We would then collect the preferences from the staff and do an engagement session with them to help manage their expectations of this new form of rota. The Lantum team would then build the rota for you via Smart Rota algorithm and work with you to make any changes needed before publishing it to the staff. This can be done as a direct comparison against your rolling rota to allow staff to choose which rota they would like if preferred. We’re aware of the need to get rotas out to staff 6-8 weeks in advance of them starting, so it is good to start this work 10-12 weeks ahead of needing a new rota. 

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Getting further support

If you have any other queries regarding your Lantum account and getting set up, please get in touch with our Secondary Care Support Team at rota.support@lantum.com