zed3
Yes, the scheduling program is called Shift Logic. I guess you can't blame all the scheduling problems on SL, as it is just software, you have to blame those (managers) that set the parameters as well.
stuckmic
What I meant by 17-11 was:
Shift cycle pattern (this is mine): 6 on 3 off, 6 on 3 off, 5 on 5 off = 17 on and 11 off. There are other variations of shift cycle patterns, but all acheive 17-11.
The 9 on and 1 off max ratio was the same before privatization, but it seems to be used more now. And you're right, 9 in a row is a lot of days! You can be assigned up to 9 days in a row and have none of those shifts as overtime, I know of 2 people this has happened to in the past couple of months, but this is rare. I'm not totally sure how this works out, but our hours worked is based on hours/month (not per week). There is a required number of straight time hours that have to be worked in a month and a maximum number of overtime hours that can be worked in a month (embarassingly I forget what exactly those numbers are now, but I will find out when I go in tonight). If your straight time hours don't equal the magic required number, Shift Logic will either give you long shifts (but no more than 12 hours in length) or add extra days to achieve its goal. With hours worked being based monthly, it does give Shift "Logic" (yeah right!) quite a free reign with your life. If you would like to see an example of a typical schedule, e-mail me and I'll send you a copy of mine.
Schedules are 56 days in length, and you get the new schedule no later than 2 weeks before the current schedule runs out. IE, my schedule expired on June 9th, so on May 26th I got my schedule for the period from June 10th to August 4th. If I want to make any concrete plans in August, I'll have to wait until July 24th to make them. Sweet, eh? Based on my shift pattern, I do know what days I'll be working and what days I'll be off, but with mandatory overtime, I can't guarantee that I'll actually have my days off, I have to wait to get the schedule to find out what overtime I'll be working. There is no ratio for hours worked per break.
Training is a whole issue unto itself, and I won't get into all of that right now. I don't know how they get anyone to apply anymore, but they do. I don't know the exact numbers of applicants pre-privitization and post-privitization, but I'd have to say it's probably close to the same.