Healthcare
Shift planning and shift compliance in hospitals: late arrivals, absences and missing hours
How do you compare a spreadsheet shift rota with check-in records? Here's how the weekly plan, rotations, swap requests and the shift compliance report work together.
A shift plan shows which shift each person works on which day; shift compliance is how closely reality followed that plan. In hospitals the plan usually lives in a spreadsheet and check-in records live somewhere else. The two are compared by hand at month end, so late arrivals, missed duties and missing hours only surface on payroll day. With EnaFeedback 2.9.0, the shift plan and staff attendance work in the same module. This post explains how the plan is built, how swap requests flow and what the shift compliance report calculates.
Why the plan and the records belong together
Shift patterns in support services, cleaning and technical services change often: leave, sick days, night duties and last-minute swaps. When the plan sits in a separate file, three problems follow:
- Staff can't see the current plan; changes get lost in a group chat.
- Swaps aren't recorded, so who covered for whom is argued over at month end.
- Check-ins can't be compared with the plan; saying "late" or "absent" means matching two tables row by row.
When the plan is kept in EnaFeedback, staff see their shift on the check-in card, swaps run on record and the compliance report is calculated for you.
Define your shifts
Each shift has a name, a short code (S, A, N), a color, a start and end time, a break, and late arrival and early leave grace. An end before the start means the shift ends the next day, so 22:00–06:00 is a night shift. Expected working time is the shift length minus the break. Grace is 5 minutes by default: someone who checks in at 08:04 for an 08:00 shift is on time.
Every plan cell keeps the shift times from when it was planned. If you move the morning shift from 08:00 to 07:30, only days after today take the new time, and reports for past days don't change. That heads off the "why did last month's late arrivals change?" question.
Weekly plan, copy and bulk assign
In the weekly plan grid, each row is a person and each column a day. Click a cell and pick a shift, Day off or Leave / sick; the change saves at once. Two tools speed things up:
- Copy previous week: writes last week's plan for the people listed into this week.
- Assign in bulk: puts a group or chosen people on the same shift, day off or leave on selected weekdays across a range of up to 62 days.
Rotations: "2 mornings, 2 nights, 2 off"
Many hospital teams work a fixed cycle. A rotation template lets you define it once: 1 to 56 steps of shifts, days off or leave, repeated in order. When you apply it, you choose the starting step and a shift per person. With a 2-day shift, the second person starts the cycle two days ahead, so the whole team isn't off on the same day and every day stays covered.
Staff hear when the plan changes
When the plan changes for days after today, whether through one cell, a bulk assignment or a rotation, the person gets one message listing the changed days. It lands in the message center in their language (Turkish, English, German, Arabic). Staff see today's shift on the check-in card ("Today's shift: Morning 08:00–16:00") and the next and last 14 days under My shifts.
Shift swaps: colleague first, then a manager
Staff can offer a swap to a colleague for a shift day after today, optionally picking another of the colleague's days and adding a reason. If the person is in a group, only colleagues from the same group are listed, each with their plan for that day. The flow has three steps:
- The staff member sends the request with Ask to swap.
- The colleague accepts or declines it.
- An accepted request goes to a manager; once approved, the two people's cells for those days swap. Rejecting needs a reason.
If either plan changed after the request was sent, approval is refused, so an old request can't break a newer plan. Pending requests whose day has passed expire. If you like, managers are alerted to every swap awaiting approval.
What the shift compliance report shows
The shift compliance report compares every planned shift with check-in records over the range you choose (up to 92 days):
| Measure | Meaning |
|---|---|
| On-time rate | Share of ended planned shifts that were on time (absences included). |
| Late arrivals / early leaves | Count and minutes, after grace. |
| Absent | No check-in at all for a planned shift. |
| No check-out | A forgotten check-out. |
| Missing hours | Expected working time minus actual working time. |
| Unplanned work | Work on an unplanned day, a day off or leave, or outside shift hours. |
You review people and day rows with a status filter and download the report as Excel with Summary, Personnel and Days sheets; the download is written to the audit log.
A night shift never spills into the next morning
For compliance to be right, every session must count for exactly one shift. The rule: a session belongs to the shift whose window, from 3 hours before the start to the end, holds its check-in. If two shifts fit the same check-in (for example 16:00–24:00 and 00:00–08:00), the one starting nearest the check-in takes it. So the session from a 22:00–06:00 night shift is never counted against the next morning's 08:00 shift.
Breaks are deducted from working time. A forgotten check-out has no known end, so that session counts at most until the shift end and doesn't inflate hours. When a person is deactivated, their plan after today is cleared and the report stops counting absences from then on.
Alerts: don't wait for month end
There are three shift alerts, all off by default:
- Late for shift: someone checks in after the start plus grace.
- No check-in for shift: nobody has checked in by the start plus grace plus 15 minutes.
- Shift swap awaiting approval: a request is waiting for a manager.
For example, the night supervisor hears when someone hasn't checked in for the 22:00 shift by 22:20 and can call in cover.
How it relates to the timesheet
The shift plan doesn't change the timesheet; the timesheet is built from actual check-ins and check-outs. In planned months, the timesheet adds Planned (shift length minus break) and Difference (worked minus planned) columns, in Excel too. Payroll sees real hours and managers see deviation from the plan in the same file. For the timesheet itself, see digital attendance and timesheets in hospitals.
Who can do what?
The Shifts page opens with the working time points and audience permission, and the Shift compliance report with the check-in / check-out records permission. The ready-made Attendance coordinator role holds both, so a support services lead runs the plan without access to personnel records or module settings.
Frequently asked questions
Can we use attendance without a shift plan? Yes. The shift plan is optional. Without one, attendance and the timesheet work as before; once you add a plan, the compliance report and planned time in the timesheet switch on.
If I change a shift's times, do past reports change? No. Each cell keeps the times it was planned with. The change applies only to days after today, and you're told how many cells were updated.
How do I define a 24-hour duty? A shift whose start and end are the same time ends at that time the next day; 08:00–08:00 is a 24-hour duty. Reminder and auto-close limits are set with such lengths in mind.
The bottom line
Keeping the shift plan and check-ins in one place removes the month-end matching job and makes deviations visible the same day. Learn more on the staff attendance and shifts feature page and in the attendance help article, or request a demo to try it in your own organization.